164 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



imfamiliar to him. His attention is given almost entirely to the subjec- 

 tion of his land and familiarizing himself with his new environment. As 

 long as his time, his thought and his energy are thus directed, it is 

 quite natural that but little attention is given to the development of 

 crops of superior quality; but when the question of local consumption 

 is settled and the farmer seeks a ready-money market for his products, 

 conditions change. It is no longer merely a question of quantity, but 

 quality and quantity. He must meet the demands of competition by sup- 

 plying a product that the market is calling for. 



Crop Quality. 



"The wheat market of the world today demands quality as well as 

 quantity; and because of this fact, we now witness a variation in prices 

 between different grades of from one to twenty cents per bushel. 

 Twenty cents a bushel is not an alluring advantage in favor of the high 

 quality, and wheat growers today see plainly the desirability of produc- 

 ing a variety of superior quality as well as high yielding power. This 

 question of quality along in wheat production, therefore, presents a 

 problem worthy of careful study. It is a question to which the best wheat 

 producer of the arid region should begin to give serious considerafon. 



Seed Breeding. 



"In my paper on 'Dry Land Cereals' before this Congress in 1908, 

 T attempted to show the necessity of selecting and developing a few 

 types of grain that would give a good yield of a high quality. I pointed 

 out the fact that the varieties we are growing at present are very badly 

 mixed and that of these varieties there could be only one best variety for 

 a given locality, and therefore our first step in increasing the yield and 

 improving the quality of our wheats should be directed towards the 

 elimination of all except the best variety for each particular secion. 

 Thi*s accomplished, we would then have our grain at least placed 

 upon a basis where we could begin actual improvement work. Having 

 decided upon our types, we could then turn to the development of sup- 

 erior strains. 



Seed Breeding. 



"At first sight the improvement of our varieties appears to be rather 

 simple, but when we examine into the facts already known relative to 

 wheat improvement, we discover numerous complexities. One of the 

 most striking and im,portant factors that demand consideration is en- 

 vironment. It is the relation of invironment to wheat production that 

 we shall deal with here, by a comparative study of the results obtained 

 in different localities, the methods of production and the variety of 

 wheat being the same in each case. 



Government Co-Operation. 



"In 1905 the Office of Grain Investigations of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, started a series of experi- 



