1905-] 



Cross-fertilisation of Wheat. 



47i 



not is that being show birds they are carefully fed on good 

 substantial food, and given every attention when at home. 

 Dairy farmers carefully study the feeding of their cows in 

 order to keep up the supply of winter milk, and in the same 

 way poultry-keepers must remember that winter eggs can only 

 be produced by those who are careful in the feeding of their 

 fowls. W. F. Snell. 



Among the problems which have come before the Home 

 Grown Wheat Committee of the National Association of 

 British and Irish Millers in their investiga- 

 Cross-fertilisation tions into th production of "strength" in 

 of Wheat. , *; , s . , 



wheat/" one of the most interesting is the 



question of obtaining by artificial cross-fertilisation a breed of 

 wheat which, while maintaining the high yields of modern 

 English wheat, shall also approach in "strength" the hard 

 American varieties. An account of the principles of cross- 

 fertilisation or hybridising is given by Mr. A. E. Humphries, 

 the Chairman of the Committee, in a paper presented to the In- 

 ternational Convention of Millers held at Paris in October last, 

 which shows very clearly the means adopted to obtain results in 

 this direction. It is only by hybridising or by selection that 

 results in the improvement in the quality of English wheat are 

 now anticipated, the experiments which have been carried out 

 up to the present having clearly shown that such influences as 

 spring or autumn sowing, manuring, early or late cutting, have 

 no appreciable effect upon the strength of wheat, while even by 

 means of selection alone no results worth the trouble taken have 

 as yet been obtained. 



In the last five years the value of hybridising to the wheat 

 breeder has been increased very greatly. Every grain of wheat 

 is produced by a form of sexual connection, and the idea of 

 taking pollen from one sort and placing it in such positions that 

 the ovaries of another sort receive the strange infusion to pro- 

 duce fresh sorts of wheat is not at all new. Nature herself 

 does not indulge in such operations. Her object is to keep 

 pure the type whatever it may be, and so carefully are her pre- 



* See Journal^ Vol. XL, September, 1904, and Vol. XII., June, 1905. 



