PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 675 
doubt, the same differences hold for other crops, this is a matter which must 
be watched by the plant-breeder. 
Cereals are not, however, the only materials upon which the plant-breeder 
has to work; indeed, they are already among the most advanced of our domes- 
ticated plants, and the other farm crops require great improvement before they 
reach the level of wheat and oats. Sugar beet affords a most interesting case; 
by selection the percentage of sugar contained in the root has been raised by 
one-half. The total amount of material grown per acre remains, however, much 
where it was, because of the difficulty—the impossibility in fact as yet—of testing 
the yielding capacity of a seedling root, whereas its sugar contents can be 
measured with ease. The same difficulty is seen among our other root crops; such 
improvement as has been effected in the mangold, turnip, &c., has chiefly been in 
the shapeliness and habit of growth of the root, these alone being the characters 
that are apparent to the selector dealing with a group of seedlings. To some 
extent these may be correlated with total yield, but how little may be judged 
from the fact that the leng red mangold, one of the very oldest varieties, is still 
the largest producer of dry matter and sugar per acre. The comparative yield of 
cereal varieties may be tested by the growth of a few hundred plants under 
rigorous conditions; some similar method will have to be worked out for root 
and fodder crops, before the plant-breeder can make much headway with them. 
Granted such a method, the plant-breeder has a fine, unexplored field before 
him in the leguminous and cruciferous fodder crops, and again in the fibre 
plants. Commercial flax, for example, is an entirely heterogeneous mixture of 
varieties, which never appears to have been subjected to the most ordinary 
selection. The fodder crops are matters of immediate importance, because the 
more intensive cultivation of the western side of Great Britain, where the high 
rainfall renders the growth of cereals a somewhat speculative industry, subject 
to loss at harvest and difficulties in the spring preparations for sowing, depends 
upon the elaboration of a system of farming based upon rapidly growing fodder 
crops. At present these districts produce milk, meat, and store stock, mainly 
from grass land that gets but little aid from the cultivator. The gross pro- 
ductive power of such land is small, and under the plough can be enormously 
raised, but arable farming has hitherto been avoided, except at times of abnormal 
prices, because of the risks attending harvesting. With improved fodder crops 
in place of grain a more profitable system of husbandry would replace the crops. 
Again, a new country like Australia will have to evolve its own fodder crops to 
suit the climate, and its own soil-regenerating plants. 
Despite the fact that a given area of land will produce something like ten 
times as much human food of a vegetable nature as of meat and milk, if 
mere power of supporting life is considered, we may assume that the human race 
will not for a long time, if ever, turn to vegetarianism. Absolute pressure of 
population, supposing the maximum has to be supported that the land can be made 
to carry, would put an end to the preliminary conversion of vegetable into animal 
food, but it is probable that the dominant races will insist on remaining flesh- 
eaters even if that necessitates the limitation of their own numbers. However, 
the scientific man has at present little to say to this sociological question; his 
business is to make the animal a more efficient converter of coarse vegetable 
fodder into high-grade food. That there is plenty of room for development in 
this direction may be inferred from the facts that Professor Wood has called 
attention to in the paper he has recently submitted to this Section. What the 
grazier calls a good doer will lay on as fat and flesh twenty per cent. of the 
energy it receives in its food as against seven per cent. stored by a bad doer; 
here is an enormous margin for improvement if the average cattle are only 
brought up to the level of efficiency of the best. No one has yet worked out the 
most economic rate of feeding for different classes of live stock, the type of 
ration that will produce the largest amount of meat from a given weight of food, 
independent of the rate at which the increase takes place. 
Granted the dependence upon research of the agriculture of the future if it 
is to meet the requirements of an increased population and a more advanced 
state of society, how can the required investigations best be organised? We 
may take it for granted that in some form or other the State must find the 
funds; in this connection at any rate there are no prizes for the private worker 
Pe Seay 
