44 FOR BETTER CROPS 



possible by our farmstead scheme, where " the farm business and 

 the family form a unit" calculated for the best production of 

 men and women. 



Progress in Breeding the Small Cereals— That the Ameri- 

 can farmers are ere long to have varieties of grain which yield 

 ten or even twenty-five per cent more than those now in use is 

 certain. 



The introduction of the best old or newly bred varieties, 

 varieties from foreign countries, and from state to state, and 

 the improvement by breeding the varieties of each state suiting 

 them to each and every agricultural district, are proved methods, 

 capable of adding $1.00 to $3.00 per acre to the value of our 

 100,000,000 acres of small cereals. 



These possible hundreds of millions of increased crops annu- 

 ally, at a cost of much less than $10,000,000, is finally interesting 

 the national and state governments, as well as seed firms, also a 

 larger number of private breeders of field crops. 



The introduction of durum or macaroni wheats to the semi- 

 arid lands of the great west has made possible tens of millions of 

 added crop, and the cost has been very slight. These durum 

 varieties are now serving as bases on which plant breeders at 

 various experiment stations are building better varieties by the 

 art of selective breeding, and by breeding by hybridization fol- 

 lowed by selection. 



Notable Increase by Spring Wheat Breeding — Some of the 

 spring wheats have already been bred so as to yield fifteen and 

 eighteen per cent more grain on millions of acres upon which 

 rapidly spreading varieties from the Minnesota experiment 

 station are now grown. 



The United States Department of Agriculture is co-operating 

 with a number of state experiment stations, and new selected 

 and new hybrid pure-bred varieties of each of the small grains 

 are being originated by the tens of thousands. , 



On one experiment farm alone 2,000 new hybrid winter wheats 

 have been originated. It is believed that at least a few of these 

 new sorts will be as hardy as rye, and will extend the winter 

 wheat zone to the Manitoba boundary, thus greatly increasing 

 the yield. 



Continuous Snow Makes Large Crops — When tlie winters 

 are such that snow covers the ground during the winter season, 

 winter wheats yield thirty to fifty per cent more than do spring 

 varieties. The combined autumn and spring cool periods greatly 

 extend the stooling period, and besides, winter wheats, by ripen- 

 ing earlier, escape much of the bad effectsof the hot, dry summer 

 weather and much of the ravages of insects, and especially of 

 wheat rust. 



