166 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. Xo. 814 



appears to be a little the best. "With the 

 general use of these wheats and better 

 farming operations it will be easy to raise 

 the production in California to the old- 

 time figures of 40,000,000 bushels, by 

 making wheat growing profitable. 



Improvements in Existing Varieties. — 

 Both the native and introduced wheats are 

 capable of being greatly improved by con- 

 tinuous selection of the best individuals 

 and by hybridization with each other. 

 This work is practically in its infancy, 

 though considerable progress has been 

 made. Some of the best known new 

 wheats produced by hybridization are 

 those originated by A. N. Jones in New 

 York, one of which, Jones's Winter Fife, 

 is widely grown. Mr. Pringle, of Ver- 

 mont, also prodiiced several new wheats of 

 importance, the well-known Defiance, a 

 spring wheat, being the best. 



Of selected wheats, the one most com- 

 monly grown to-day is the Fultz, developed 

 by Abraham Fultz in Pennsylvania. It is 

 now a standard variety in all winter wheat 

 districts, though being rapidly supplanted 

 in some localities by hardier sorts. The 

 selection work done at the Minnesota Ex- 

 periment Station, resulting in the new 

 strains, Nos. 163, 169, etc., has had the 

 greatest influence of aU work of this kind 

 on wheat production, and has greatly in- 

 creased the spring wheat yield. Much of 

 this improvement has been accomplished in 

 cooperation with the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture. 



Improvements in Methods of Farming. — 

 There is no doubt that much of the increase 

 in acre yields already attained is due to 

 improved farming methods. Yet improve- 

 ments in this line are only fairly begun. 

 The size of farms will continue to be cur- 

 tailed, and operations will become more 

 careful and intensive. The wheat acreage 

 may thus be slightly lessened in some 



places, but this will be more than counter- 

 balanced by better results from each acre. 

 More complex and better adapted systems 

 of farm management are being adopted, 

 which require careful rotations of crops, 

 better tillage and use of waste products. 



Recent interest in "dry farming," so- 

 caUed, is resulting in a rapid diffusion of 

 the knowledge of proper methods of culti- 

 vation for conservation of moisture. There 

 will grow out of this a considerable further 

 increase in yield in the dry districts and a 

 further extension of the wheat area into 

 localities still drier, where agriculture in 

 general is now considered to be at best very 

 uncertain. It may be of interest to the 

 miUers to know that the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture has under way extensive 

 series of experiments in just this line of 

 investigations at fourteen points in the 

 western great plains and intermountain 

 districts. Hundreds of dry-land wheats 

 also are being studied and selected on these 

 farms. 



The use of legumes and other crops to be 

 plowed under green to furnish more humus 

 and as renovators of the soil in other re- 

 spects will be much practised hereafter. 

 In the course of a series of experiments 

 conducted several years in California, by 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture, part 

 of the time in cooperation with the state 

 experiment station, it has been found that 

 one of the greatest needs of the wheat 

 grower is the use of leguminous crops for 

 the purposes just mentioned and the prac- 

 tise of sowing wheat after green rye plowed 

 under. The yield of wheat per acre fol- 

 lowing these treatments of the soil was 22 

 biishels greater than that of wheat follow- 

 ing wheat. 



PROBABILITY OF INCREASE IN PRODUCTION 



We come now to the question which, 

 after all our efforts with estimates, is the 

 most difficult to answer. What is the 



