415 
CLASSIFICATION  OF  RICE. 
The  rice  investigations  carried  on  in  Japan  are  foremost  of 
those  of  any  other  country.  At  Kinai,  near  Osaka,  is  situated 
an  experiment  station  entirely  devoted  to  rice  breeding.  This 
station  recently  undertook  the  colossal  work  of  collecting  and 
classifying  all  the  varieties  of  rice  grown  throughout  the  Em- 
pire. For  this  purpose  all  ayailable  rices,  embracing  over  four 
thousand  different  lots,  were  collected  and  compared.  By  the 
system  instituted,  duplicates  were  eliminated  and  the  residue 
were  separated  into  varieties.  As  the  result  of  six  years’  labor 
all  Japanese  rices  were  classified  into  six  hundred  and  sixty 
distinct  stocks.  From  these  pedigreed  seed  is  grown  and  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  Empire. 
RICE  EXPERIMENTS.  POT  CULTURE 
RICE  BREEDING. 
As  has  been  said  the  research  work  is  of  a very  intelligent 
order.  The  breeding  principles  of  Mendel  and  the  mutation 
theory  of  De  Vries  are  both  thoroughly  understood  and  applied. 
The  evolution  of  new  rices  is  brought  about  either  by  straight 
selection  of  approved  specimens  or  by  artificial  hybridization. 
During  this  present  season  upwards  of  ten  thousand  crosses  were 
effected.  At  first  these  operations  were  conducted  with  indiffer- 
ent success  and  brought  about  most  indefinite  results.  At  the 
present  time  the  methods  are  much  better  understood  and  so  far 
controlled  that  about  thirty  per  cent,  of  crosses  are  effective. 
In  the  rice  trial  grounds  over  two  thousand  distinct  cultures  were 
in  operation,  ranging  from  small  groups  of  about  twelve  plants 
to  plots  of  several  rods  in  extent. 
