PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 233 
or at the best upon the result of practical experience. 
We are now within sight of the day when a complete 
system of precise scientific methods will have been 
elaborated. The time required for the development 
and application of these methods must chiefly depend 
upon the apathy or enterprise of those in whose hands 
rests the means of subsidizing this kind of work, for 
without proper resources the progress of any such 
study must of necessity be slower than it would be 
if properly - equipped establishments were at the 
disposal of duly trained experimenters receiving an 
adequate remuneration. 
The practical application of Mendelism cannot be 
better illustrated than by an account of Prof. R. H. 
Biffen’s work upon the improvement of cereals, particu- 
larly of wheat—work which exhibits an extraordinary 
contrast in point of scientific exactness with everything 
of the kind which has been previously undertaken. 
This contrast was remarkably displayed at one of the 
morning sessions of the recent International Congress 
on Hybridization and Plant Breeding, held under the 
auspices of the Royal Horticultural Society. On that 
occasion a series of communications upon the subject 
of cereals culminated in an admirable account given by 
Prof. Biffen of the way in which the problems of their 
improvement have been overcome at the experimental 
farm of the Cambridge University Department of 
Agriculture. And it was a gratifying sign of better 
times to observe the enthusiastic interest with which 
practical men greeted his communication. 
As a preliminary measure Biffen has worked out the 
