PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 235 



There is a quality of wheat grains known as strength 

 which is essential for the production of a flour such as 

 can be baked into the kind of loaf which is at present 

 the only one saleable in England. This quality un- 

 fortunately happens to be wanting in all the strains of 

 wheat which it has hitherto been possible to grow at 

 a profit in this country. For this reason imported 

 American and Canadian hard wheats, which possess 

 this quality of strength, are worth in England some 

 shillings a quarter more than home-grown wheats. 



When such strong American varieties are grown in 

 this country the majority of them are rapidly found to 

 lose this quality, and to become after a short time as 

 ' weak ' as ordinary English wheats. Some of them do, 

 however, retain their strength, and after several seasons 

 in one case fourteen show no signs of deterioration. 

 An example of a wheat of this latter type is afforded 

 by Red Fife, which is the basis of the mixed wheat 

 known commercially as Manitoba Hard, the latter 

 consisting, as a matter of fact, of a mixture of several 

 different varieties. Unfortunately these permanently 

 hard wheats do not yield so large a crop as the com- 

 monly cultivated English varieties, and so their higher 

 price does not make up for the smaller number of 

 bushels per acre obtained when they are grown. 



Biffen therefore set to work upon the problem of 

 combining hardness or strength with the power of 

 yielding a good crop, and with the other desirable 

 qualities characteristic of the home-grown varieties. 

 With this end in view Manitoba Hard was crossed with 

 a typical English wheat Rough Chaff, 



