A Rainless Wheat 



public attention in America has been directed 

 to them, and this has been due mainly to the 

 publications and efforts of the National Depart- 

 ment at Washington. In the year 1900 Mr 

 M. A. Carleton, United States Cerealist, was sent 

 on a mission to Russia. He travelled through 

 the durum wheat -belt and secured a large num- 

 ber of varieties ; these were distributed to the 

 farmers and experimental stations in the Great 

 Plains region of Western America, in which the 

 climate and soils are very like those found in 

 Russia and Algeria, where these particular 

 wheats are largely grown. Mr Carleton wrote 

 on p. 16 of his bulletin on " Macaroni (Durum) 

 Wheats " : 



"The normal yearly rainfall of the Great Plains 

 at the one-hundredth meridian where wheat- 

 growing is at present practically non-existent on 

 account of lack of drought-resistance varieties 

 is nearly three inches greater than that for the 

 entire semi-arid Volga region, which is one of 

 the principal wheat regions of Russia, and 

 which produces the finest macaroni wheat in 

 the world." 



At first these wheats were received with but 

 little favour, in spite of the fact that they gave 



105 



