624 History of a Grain of Wheat 



THE HISTORY OF A GRAIN 

 OF WHEAT FROM THE SEED BED TO 

 THE BREAKFAST TABLE. 



Sir A. Daniel Hall, K.C.B., F.R.S., 



Chief Scientific Adviser and Director-General of Intelligence 

 Department, Ministry of Agriculture. 



On 24th August Sir Daniel Hall gave the concluding evening 

 discourse at the Cardiff meeting of the British Association, and 

 chose as his subject " The History of a Grain of Wheat from the 

 Seed Bed to the Breakfast Table." He began by pointing out 

 that there exist in the history of mankind no processes older, 

 more essential or more universal than the growing, grinding and 

 baking of wheat and its kindred food grains. It might seem, 

 therefore, rather unnecessary, before a gathering for the advance- 

 ment of science, to talk about a business which had been brought 

 to something like perfection long before anything that could be 

 called science had come into being. Countless years have elapsed 

 since primitive man took the momentous step of sowing a little of 

 the wild grain he had hitherto been content to gather, in the 

 hope of saving himself some trouble in collecting the next year's 

 crop. Millions of men have spent their lives in growing wheat, 

 and, since the very life of the community has often depended 

 upon a good wheat crop, all sorts of rewards have attended on its 

 improvement. AYhat possibly can there still be to learn about 

 it? Yet at every stage in the passage of the grain of wheat from 

 its seed bed to the breakfast table we find that we do not know 

 all that we need to know in order to get on with the essential 

 business of making two grains grow where one grew before. 



Population overtaking Wheat Production. — The object of 

 the lecture was to show that even in this fundamental industry 

 science keeps coming in at every turn, and that research calling 

 for the best of man's imagination, skill and determination is 

 required if the world's progress is to continue. All biologists 

 would agree that the development of man demands an abundant 

 food supply, just as the gardener knows he cannot attain to fine 

 flowers except upon a fat soil. But the population of the world 

 is rapidly growing up to, if it has not for the moment exceeded, 

 its available supply, and only by research and by the wide utilisa- 

 tion of the fruits of that research can we obtain the greater supply 

 of food that the world needs. The most potent remedy for the 



[Oct., 



