536 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 981 



Even as late as fifteen years ago plant- 

 breeding was in the purely empirical hap- 

 hazard stage. Then came the rediscovery 

 of Mendel's laws of heredity, which put in 

 the hands of breeders an entirely new 

 weapon. About the same time the Millers' 

 Association created the Home-grown Wheat 

 Committee, of which Biffen was a member. 

 Through this committee he was able to 

 define his problem as far as the improve- 

 ment of English wheat was concerned. 

 There appeared to be two desiderata: (1) 

 The production of a wheat which would 

 crop as well as the best standard home- 

 grown varieties, at the same time yielding 

 strong grain, i. e., grain of good milling and 

 baking quality; and (2) the production of 

 varieties of wheat resistant to yellow rust, 

 a disease which has been computed to de- 

 crease the wheat crop of the world by about 

 one third. 



The problem having been defined, sam- 

 ples of wheat were collected from every 

 part of the world and sown on small plots. 

 From the first year's crop single ears were 

 picked out and grown on again. Thus sev- 

 eral hundred pure strains were obtained. 

 Many were obviously worthless. A few 

 possessed one or more valuable character- 

 istics: strong grain, freedom from rust, 

 sturdy straw, and so on. These were used 

 as parents for crossing, and from the prog- 

 eny two new varieties have been grown on, 

 thoroughly tested, and finally put on the 

 market. Both have succeeded, but both 

 have their limitations. Burgoyne's Fife, 

 which came from a cross between strains 

 isolated respectively from Canadian Red 

 Fife and Rough Chaff, was distributed by 

 the Millers' Association after a series of 

 about forty tests, in which it gave an aver- 

 age crop of forty bushels per acre of grain, 

 which milled and baked practically as well 

 as the best imported Canadian wheat. It is 

 an early- ripening variety which may even 



be sown as a spring wheat. It has repeat- 

 edly been awarded prizes for the best sam- 

 ple of wheat at shows, but it only succeeds 

 in certain districts. It is widely and suc- 

 cessfully grown in Bedfordshire and Dorset, 

 but has not done well in Norfolk. The 

 other variety. Little Joss, succeeds much 

 more generally. In a series of twenty-nine 

 trials scattered between Norfolk and Shrop- 

 shire, Kent and Scotland, it gave an aver- 

 age of forty-four bushels per acre, as com- 

 pared with forty bushels given by adjoin- 

 ing plots of Square Head's Master. It 

 originated from a cross between Square 

 Head's Master and a strain isolated from 

 a Russian graded wheat known as Glinka. 

 Its grain is the quality of ordinary English 

 wheat. It tillers exceptionally well in the 

 spring, and is practically rust-proof. Its 

 one drawback is its slow growth during the 

 winter if sown at all late. It has met with 

 its greatest success in the Fen districts, 

 where rust is more than usually virulent. 



The importance of this work is not to be 

 measured only by the readiness with which 

 the seed of the new varieties has been tried 

 by farmers and the extent to which it has 

 succeeded. The demonstration of the in- 

 heritance of immunity to the disease known 

 as yellow rust, the first really accurate con- 

 tribution to the inheritance of resistance to 

 any kind of disease, inspires hope that a 

 new method has appeared for the preven- 

 tion of diseases in general. 



Biffen 's work too shows the enormous 

 value of cooperation between the investi- 

 gator and the buyer in defining problems 

 connected with the improvement of agricul- 

 tural produce. It is open to doubt if a 

 committee of farmers would have been able 

 to define the problems of English wheat 

 production as was done by the Millers' 

 Committee, and in the solution of any prob- 

 lem its exact definition is half the battle. 

 Mackenzie and Marshall in their work on 



