Various Methods of Breeding Wheat. 59 



will be referred to further under the heading of cattle 

 breeding in future articles. 



A third method of breeding wheat carries the rec- 

 ognition of the individual plant still further. Here an 

 actual and successful experiment will serve to illustrate 

 both the method and its results. Ten years ago last 

 spring the writer planted several thousand wheat plants, 

 one plant in a hill. In those days the hills were placed 

 12 inches apart instead of 4 inches, as now. The seeds 

 of those plants which appeared to yield heaviest were 

 harvested in separate packets. These were carefully 

 weighed and graded and 31 of the heaviest with supe- 

 rior quality of berry were chosen as mother plants. The 

 next spring 300 seeds were planted from each mother 

 plant, again 12 inches apart each way. The third spring 

 a quart or so of wheat from each of the 31 sticks was 

 planted and one-half bushel of each was secured. The 

 fourth year larger plats were grown in comparison 

 with the several parent wheats which had been used as 

 foundation stocks. This was repeated the fifth and 

 sixth years, when eight of the 31 new varieties showed 

 average yields here at University Farm superior to the 

 old varieties. Four of these were of especial promise 

 and two, Minnesota No. 163, a new fife variety, and 

 Minnesota No. 169, a new blue stem variety, were chos- 

 en to distribute. In the meantime these varieties had 

 been tested under agreement not to distribute by the 

 three sub-stations in Minneota and by the North Da- 

 kota, South Dakota and Iowa Stations. By 1899 Min- 

 nesota No. 163 had been so increased in quantity that 

 200 bushels were sold to Minnesota farmers; in 1900, 

 100 bushels were sold and in 1901 again 200 bu- 

 shels were sold, in all cases to farmers selected by the 

 State Expeiment Station. In 1899 carefully gathered 

 statistics from growers showed that this wheat yielded 

 over two bushels more than its parent variety and about 

 one bushel more than blue stem wheat. It should be 

 said that fife and blue stem are almost exclusively 

 grown in the State, the latter predominating in the 



