SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—L, M. 509 
been set up which, being locally representative of educational and cultural interests, 
can more easily secure the interest and co-operation of their particular localities. 
Area Councils are now in existence in the West Midlands, in the North-West, 
in Yorkshire and in the West Country ; a local committee covering Dumfriesshire and 
Lanarkshire has been formed to supervise a special experiment made possible by the 
generosity of the Carnegie Trustees. A similar experiment in Kent has already been 
completed. 
To increase the association of listeners with the activities of the Corporation and 
of the Council, a series of conferences have been held, confined mainly to those 
interested in the development of discussion groups. These were first held regionally, 
and this year, for the first time, nationally. This year, too, a Summer School was 
held at New College, Oxford, at which seventy students attended. In the Western 
area a register of listeners is to be compiled. 
Programme Technique.—This has been elaborated in the light of the analysis of 
correspondence, of reports from education officers, and of resolutions carried at the 
local and national conferences of listeners. 
The most important points of principle which have emerged are: necessity for 
great simplicity of treatment and informality of manner; choice of topics which 
have wide general interest (such are literature, ecorlomics, philosophy, psychology, and 
industrial and political problems), and a realist rather than an academic approach. 
Controversy is demanded on all sides and, within subjects, a continuity of treatment 
over as long a period as possible, on given nights of the week. 
The new programme for the autumn and spring embodies the most ambitious 
attempt yet made to secure not only continuity of treatment, but also a unity of 
theme running throughout the programme which should give a cumulative eflect to 
its educational aspect. Concentration upon live issues and upon the forces of trans- 
formation which have affected the lives as well as the ways of thought of all listeners, 
secures that relation to experience which appeals to the general audience. 
Discussion and Questions. (Mr. C. A. S1repMANN.) 
Report of Committee on Education for Life Overseas. (Sir Joun RUSSELL, 
F.R.S.; Miss Grapys Pott. See p. 291.) 
SECTION M.—AGRICULTURE. 
Thursday, September 24. 
SCIENCE AND THE PRODUCTION OF Foop Crops :— 
Dr. E. 8. Beaven.—Plant Breeding and Biometrics. 
The breeding of modified races or forms of farm plants is one of the few hopeful 
methods of assisting the agricultural industry in its present almost desperate state of 
emergency. 
Since 1910 (excluding two of the War years), systematically replicated cultures of 
Barley on a uniform plan have been carried on at Warminster in the hope of improving 
the practice of selecting cultures raised from single plants either of established races 
already in cultivation, or of artificially produced hybrids. A considerable mass of 
data has been accumulated representing countings, weighings and analyses of the 
produce of over three thousand plots of barley of many distinct races all chessboarded 
on the same plan—the majority from single plants of the F3 or F'4 generation following 
cross-fertilisation. A sample of these results is now presented. 
The problem attempted has been the discovery of intrinsic factors of productivity, . 
and of the quality of the produce. These are necessarily different for each species of 
farm plant. For each species an economic problem arises and for this reason 
Biometrics are more useful than Mendelian Genetics. For instance, with Sugar 
Beet the problem would be to predict from some inherited and determinable 
morphological or physiological plant characters the best yield of sugar per acre under 
various cultural conditions. With different races of grasses and forage plants the 
