796 REPORT—1904. 
plants showing recessive characters only are fixed once for all; the others may or ~ 
may not be fixed, but a subsequent trial of, say, fifty seeds from each form is 
sufficient for a test. Ifthe progeny consists of various forms it may be neglected. 
The fixtures are then grown on for field and milling tests. 
3. Hybridisation of Cereals. By Joun H. Witson, D.Sc. 
The author described experiments with oats, wheat, barley, turnips, potatoes, 
&c. The experiments with oats are in their fourth season. The crop now ripen- 
ing represents the second generation from the hybrids. Certain white varieties 
were crossed one with the other, and also black ones with white. The hybrids of 
the latter are of most interest. They showed decided intermediate characters, the 
ears partaking of the one-sided form and the grains the black colour of the Black 
Tartarian used. The brown hybrid grains produced a crop of plants which bore 
pyramidal or open-headed as well as one-sided panicles, and white grains as well 
as black ones. The damage done to the crop by storms was so great that it was 
found impossible to say for certain what the proportion of pyramidal to one-sided 
panicles was. The colour of the grains, however, could be worked out. It was 
obvious that the colour of the grains is a character to be relied on, and if a 
sufficiently large number of plants be taken into consideration this character will 
be found to exhibit distribution in accordance with Mendel’s law. The assumption 
can fairly be made that, if the condition of the crop had permitted, other characters, 
especially the form of the ear, would also have been found to conform to the above 
law, 
The following table shows the ratios of black to white grains :— 
Goldfinder 9 Black Tartarian. ¢ — 
Grains Plants Black White 
sown. saved, grains, grains. 
1,000 567 433 154 3°23: 1 
900 566 415 151 2°75:1 
Black Tartarian x White Canadian— 
890 32 379 153 2°-48:1 
Black Tartarian x Abundance— 
600 274 209 65 Be eel 
The plants bearing black grains were separated from those bearing white, and 
grains were selected from many single plants of each kind and sown in rows of 50 
or 100 each. The crop produced by these is, at the time of writing, too green to 
admit of notes regarding colour of the grain being made, but the form of the ears 
can be observed in a general way. Pyramidal and unilateral ears occur in all the 
six plots sown with the black and white grains of the three hybrids, but there is a 
decided majority of one or other form in each plot. The general appearance of the 
ad justifies one in summarising as follows with regard to the predominant form 
ot the ears :— 
Ratio. 
co 
Colour of grain sown. Form of green ear. 
i : Black Unilateral 
Goldfinder x Black Tartarian . ; { White Unilateral 
: é : Black Pyramidal 
Black Tartarian x White Canadian . { White Pyramidal 
Black Tartarian x Abundance. . { ee : Peramidal 
It may be assumed that if the ears could have been studied last year it would 
have been found that the same condition as shown above obtained, and that the 
Black Tartarian, although dominant in all cases in respect of the colour of the 
