STUDIES ON OAT BREEDING. 5 



time is admittedly very short. However, it has seemed advisable 

 to analyze the results up to this point at the present time and to 

 see if by the use of somewhat different methods new light could 

 be thrown upon these problems. It is proposed to continue cer- 

 tain of these experiments with the object of applying still other 

 methods of analysis to them. 



In 191 1 there was planned at this Station a series of experi- 

 ments to test the effect of selection in pure lines of oats. This 

 work has been continued so that now there are available for 

 study the results of three successive selections. The work was 

 originally planned by Dr. Pearl and was carried on under his 

 general direction until the summer of 1913 when, along with 

 other plant breeding work, it was turned over to the writer, 

 (F. M. Surface). Various people have been associated with this 

 work. In 191 1 Dr. E. P. Humbert looked after the field work. 

 In 1912 and part of 1913 Dr. M. R. Curtis and Mr. C. W. Bar- 

 ber were in charge of this work. 



At the beginning of this work three general lines were planned. 

 First, the attempt to determine the influence of selection when 

 the plants were grown under exceptionally favorable conditions 

 in regard to food material. Second, there was the attempt to 

 determine the influence of selection, if any, upon plants grown 

 under very unfavorable conditions in regard to food supply. 

 Finally it was planned to see whether any permanent effect 

 could be produced within a given pure line by growing it for a 

 period of years under very good or under very poor conditions. 

 It is the purpose of the present paper to deal only with the first 

 of these categories, viz., the effect of selection upon pure lines 

 grown under favorable conditions. 



Materials and Methods. 



The oa,t flower is almost always self-fertilized. Rimpau" says 

 that in dealing with 19 different varieties of oats during a 

 period of six years he observed only five spontaneous crosses. 

 Our own observations would tend to show even a much smaller 

 number than this. For several years garden rows of different 



"Rimipau, W. Kreiizungsproduktion landw. Kulturpflanzen. Landw. 

 Jahrb. 1891. 



