60 Breeding of Plants and Animals. 



Southern part and gradually supplanting the fife in the 

 Northern half of the State. 



Estimates sho\v that there are about 60,000 acres of 

 Minnesota No. 1(^3 wheat now growing (1902) in 

 Minnesota. This new variety producing wheat worth 

 a dollar per acre more than the varieties it is supplant- 

 ing will add enough wealth to repay all the money the 

 station has ever spent in introducing and improving 

 crops. If this wheat could be increased five fold for 

 three or four years more it would cover the State and 

 the increased yield would be worth several millions of 

 dollars annually. That result is not to be hoped for, 

 but it promises to increase rapidly and cover a large 

 portion of the wheat acreage of the State. But the 

 station has other and still better varieties coming on 

 and it is our ambition to increase the State's yield five 

 instead of one and one-half bushels per acre by breed- 

 ing; and also a similar amount by so improving the 

 farm management that the fields planted to wheat will 

 be better prepared for that crop. This seems practi- 

 cable both by choosing the kind of crop preceding the 

 wheat and by better methods of tillage and manur 

 ing. Minnesota's average wheat yield is 13^ bushels 

 per acre, while England's is about 30. It is the aim to 

 bring Minnesota's yield up 10 bushels, or to 23/^2 bu- 

 shels per acre. Too high ? Should it not more nearly 

 approach that of England even if she has longer sea- 

 sons, cooler, cloudier summers, and mild winters, per- 

 mitting the use of winter wheats?* 



It would be manifestly unsafe to distribute varieties 

 originated under this third plan from single mother 

 plants without first testing their ability to yield larger 

 crops of grain of superior quality. The new varieties 

 are run annually in plots of one-tenth or one-twentieth 

 of an acre for three years. Since wheat is close fertil- 

 ized these can be planted only two feet apart as shown 

 in the picture of a man harvesting plats of wheat. 



The bundles from each plat are carefully shocked 

 separately and as soon as they are sufficiently dry they 



