PLANT BREEDING. 29 



CHAPTER II. 



PLANT BREEDING. 



Perhaps in no other branch of agricultural science can the 

 immediate value of research be shown so well as in the case of 

 investigations into plant breeding; for it requires no power of 

 argument to demonstrate the gain, not only to the farmer or 

 horticulturist, but to the nation, derived from the introduction 

 of a new or improved plant. A wheat giving a slightly increased 

 yield, or better able to withstand the weather conditions of this 

 country, puts money into the pockets of the farmer, and, by 

 increasing home production and thereby lessening our dependence 

 on the foreigner, is a national asset. In proof of this we need 

 only mention the introduction to the British farmer of Yeoman 

 wheat, by Prof. Biffen of Cambridge ; of Plumage Archer barley, 

 by Mr. Beaven of Warminster; and of Blue Cone wheat, by 

 Prof. Percival of Reading. In this chapter an account will 

 be given of the more recent investigations at the Plant Breeding 

 Institute at Cambridge, and reference will also be made to 

 work that is going on at a new Plant Breeding Station that has 

 been established at Aberystwyth, at which the main line of 

 research lies in the direction of improving our herbage plants. 

 As the latter Institute has not long been established, the reference 

 to it must of necessity be confined to a description of the gradual 

 building up of a plant breeding station, which in due course 

 will doubtless produce results worthy of agricultural research. 

 It is believed that such an account will be not without interest 

 to the agricultural reader, as showing the enormous amount 

 of detail involved in the production of improved types of plant. 

 For this reason, too, it will be unnecessary to refer to this aspect 

 of the subject in describing the work in progress at the Cambridge 

 Institute. 



When a Plant Breeding Institute has succeeded in producing 

 — necessarily on a small scale— new varieties of plants which 

 breed true and apparently contain the qualities desired, the 

 need arises for a non-commercial organisation which shall test 

 them on a larger scale and produce seed in sufficient quantities 

 for distribution to farmers. For this purpose the National 

 Institute of Agricultural Botany has recently been estabUshed 

 at Cambridge by means of funds derived in part from subscrip- 

 tions from the seed and milling trades and from private donors, 

 and in part from the Development Fund. The Institute owns 



