August 5, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



165 



commonly grown in southern Pennsyl- 

 vania, and in more recent years has been 

 the popular wheat of northern Texas. The 

 Sonora from Mexico and the Australian 

 from Australia are good examples of intro- 

 ductions into California and the southern 

 Rocky Mountain states, which became 

 afterwards important standard varieties. 



The great introductions, however, that 

 have been revolutionary in their influence 

 on the wheat industry of this country, and 

 have made landmarks in history, are those 

 of the Fife brought from eastern Europe 

 through Scotland and Canada into the 

 northern states of the plains, and the 

 Crimean or Turkey brought from the 

 Crimea and established in the middle 

 states of the plains. The combined output 

 of these two types of wheat now comprises 

 nearly half the entire wheat production of 

 the country. These introductions have in 

 each instance been the foundation of an 

 enormous milling business, and have with- 

 out doubt added to the wheat production 

 of the two areas combined 40 to 60 million 

 more bushels than would have resulted 

 from the use of other wheats previously 

 grown. New introductions may increase 

 wheat production by increasing both the 

 wheat area and the acre yield. Often bet- 

 ter adapted varieties will make their way 

 into new localities where the conditions are 

 so severe that other wheats would not usu- 

 ally succeed. This has been true in the 

 introduction of the Crimean wheats into 

 the middle states of the plains, both at the 

 beginning and in later introductions of 

 hardier strains. A particularly good ex- 

 ample is that of the Kharkov strain intro- 

 duced by the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, which now furnishes an annual 

 addition of at least 20,000.000 bushels of 

 the present hard winter wheat production 

 by extending the area to the north and 

 west and by increasing the acre yield. 



Similar to the influence of the Crimean 

 wheat introduction has been that of the 

 durum. Here we have the best example 

 yet known of adaptation to severe condi- 

 tions. By penetrating localities so dry 

 that other wheats would not survive, and 

 by an increase of acre yields from 20 to 

 50 per cent., the introduction of this type 

 of wheat has added about 30,000,000 bush- 

 els annually to the wheat production of the 

 great plains. 



One of the best examples of improve- 

 ments yet possible is found in the condi- 

 tions surrounding the grain grower and 

 miller in California. The wheats com- 

 monly grown there, Australian, California 

 Club and Sonora, are very deficient in 

 gluten usually, though there is considerable 

 variation in this respect in varieties and 

 localities. To comply with the demands of 

 the flour markets, therefore, the miller im- 

 ports wheat of greater baking strength from 

 the hard wheat areas of the great plains 

 to the extent of nearly or quite half of 

 all he uses. This condition is in face of 

 the fact that California can produce all the 

 wheat she needs and has done so formerly. 

 As early as 1878 the production was nearly 

 four times that of the present. While bad 

 practises of cultivation are largely respon- 

 sible for present low yields, there is great 

 need of new varieties in general cultiva- 

 tion, giving better yields and better flour. 



It is pleasant to be able to announce here 

 that exactly the varieties for these pur- 

 poses have been found, and only an in- 

 crease in the seed is now needed to give 

 California a wheat ranking well in com- 

 mercial quality with any other in the coun- 

 try. These varieties are the Chul and 

 Fretes, introduced by the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture from Turkestan and 

 Algeria, respectively. They not only 

 stand high in quality, but yield much bet- 

 ter than any of the native wheats. Chul 



