188 
ing, the Kinai and Yamaguchi Stations offered the privilege 
of selecting a number of individual breeding plants from 
among their pedigree plots. This collection, together with 
stocks secured subsequently, consists of about 150 varieties, 
and will be grown in comparative tests during the coming 
year. 
Our hope of producing a rice acceptable to the large Japan- 
ese population of the Islands, which now imports $750,000 
of rice annually from Japan, would seem to rest upon some 
one or several of these varieties. It is intended to grow pedi- 
gree stocks from the selections which were thus secured and 
to develop superior strains as rapidly as possible, distributing 
them among the rice growers as soon as sufficient seed is 
available. 
The rice breeding work conducted at the Kinai Branch 
Station seemed to the writer unique in its extent, thorough- 
ness and achievement. With the view of establishing the 
identity of the numerous varieties of rice grown in Japan, 
and to clear the nomenclature, in 1901 a systematic collec- 
tion of rice seed from all parts of the Empire was undertaken. 
Four thousand different lots of seed were collected. The 
plants grown from these various seed lots were studied and 
compared for a period of six years, and have finally been 
grouped under 660 more or less constant varieties or strains, 
which are believed to be sufficiently distinct to be classified. 
At the time of my visit pure strains of these rices ivere 
groAving side by side in plots 12 x 32 feet, the AAffiole experi- 
ment occupying ten acres and constituting model trial 
grounds. In addition to the extensive experiments just men- 
tioned, there Avere 1,200 other field experiments of varying 
size, from those embracing only a fcAv hybrid plants to plots 
a rod square, in Avhich the plants were just reaching maturity. 
A half-dozen men Avere engaged in taking field notes, and 
each indiAudual plant Avas considered separately. 
The systematic arrangement of the experimental plots and 
the thoroughness with AAdiich the Avork Avas done AA^as an ob- 
ject lesson deserving attention, and the writer personally got 
many valuable suggestions. In the breeding Avork, straight 
selection, by the “single-ear method,'’ artificial crossing or 
hybridization, and mutations or sports, are made use of. In 
the season, which was then closing, fully 10,000 crosses had 
been made. Of these about thirty per cent, are usually suc- 
cessful. The hybridization is all done under glass. With the 
breeding project AA^ell Avorked out beforehand, the individual 
parents are planted in separate plots, and at the proper time 
hand-pollinated in the green-house. Three to five florets in 
each panicle are cross-pollinated, and are then coA^ered AA'ith 
paraffine paper bags to prevent possibilities of accidental fer- 
tilization. 
