414 PRACTICAL BOTANY 



that perhaps the wheat plant originated in the once highly 

 fertile portion of Turkey in Asia between the Tigris and the 

 Euphrates rivers, and was gradually spread by cultivation 

 both eastward and westward from its place of origin.^ About 

 eight species of wheat are recognized, and the number of vari- 

 eties is too great to be readily counted. In ^iew of the great 

 number of existing varieties, it is not strange that there are 

 among them enough types to suit highly unlike soils and cli- 

 mates. Accordmgly there are varieties that meet the needs of 

 the soil and climate of Japan, others that resist the drought 

 and cold of eastern Russia and jManitoba, others still that can 

 endure the drought and heat of southern Russia and Turkes- 

 tan, while in North America there are varieties best suited to 

 each of the leading wheat-growing regions. 



Wheat grown anywhere without attention to the selection 

 of pure seed is likely to show many variations in the same 

 field, — a fact most familiar to the experts in our agricultural 

 experiment stations. In the early part of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury a wheat farmer named Le Couteur, living in the Isle of 

 Jersey, near the coast of France, was visited by Professor La 

 Gasca, of the University of Madrid, who discovered twenty- 

 three different kinds of wheat in a field which was supposed 

 to be all nearly alike. Le Couteur was much impressed by 

 the possibility of obtaining desirable new breeds of wheat by 

 selecting all the heads of each of the best types found in the 

 field and growing each type by itself until he could find out 

 all necessary details about its productiveness and other charac- 

 teristics. In this way he obtained several new varieties, among 

 them one excellent kind still much grown in England and 

 northern France, known as " Bellevue de Talavera." This 

 famous wheat comes true to such an extent that no other 

 varieties have been derived from it.^ 



1 For another view see Bulletin S74, Bureau of Plant Industiy, V. S. 

 Dept. Agr., 1913. 



^ See Hugo de Vries, "Plant Breeding" ; and "Species and Varieties: 

 their Origin by Mutation." The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago. 



