CARTERS’ NEW CROSS BRED WHEATS 
From “THE MORNING POST,” August 17th, 1886. 
Only those who are able to judge of the extent of the 
trials and experiments made by individual firms for the 
purpose of the improvement of farm machinery, plant 
life, or animal form and power, have the power of 
judging how much we owe in the aggregate to com- 
mercial enterprise and careful competition, in the pro- 
duction of “the best.” Certainly it exceeds all that 
any Government station has ever done. A few weeks 
ago we described some most elaborate experiments in 
grass management, and now we are able to report a 
series of most interesting trials and experiments, and 
some that are likely to have a most important bearing 
on the future of our agriculture. Both of these series 
are being carried out on the trial grounds belonging to 
Messrs. James Carter & Co. The first of these trials 
refer to the breeding of new varieties of wheat, and the 
second to the growth of tobacco in this country. 
The production of new wheats has been perhaps one 
of the most popular works of the scientist for many 
years, and years ago Mr. Patrick Sherifi' described in 
the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society the 
results of a number of such experiments. But hitherto 
the work done has been rather that of selection than of 
actual crossing of varieties of distinct characteristics. 
There is no doubt on the question that this selection of 
corn has resulted in a great improvement in our varieties, 
and it may be said almost as a truism that crops grown 
from seed of a pedigree character, and from a long 
course of selection, produce crops that are far superior 
to those grown from seed carelessly selected. But to 
the vegetable physiologist plants offer a much wider 
scope of work than is shown in mere improvement by 
selection. In the harvest field the best grain can be 
“ selected ” by any one, and intelligent labour even is 
not a necessity. Crossing of breeds by hybridisation, 
on the other hand, is a delicate and scientific work, and 
one that requires not only all the patience and care of 
careful training, but a deep knowledge of botanical 
physiology, and the guidance of an accurate mind. It 
is this that makes the five years’ experiments in wheat 
hybridisation at Messrs. Carters’ nurseries so interesting 
and instructive. During the whole of this period 
crosses have been made between the different varieties, 
and yet it is only just now that the actual results are 
beginning to be apparent. Even if they had no per- 
manent value to our agriculture, it would have been of 
interest to have watched the actual results of the deli- 
cate crossing of varieties. The crosses are numerous, 
but it is not all that are successful. One is a cross, for 
instance, between the square-headed smooth chaff 
(female) and the American bearded. The result of the 
cross — though both the parents are strong and tall — is 
one of the shortest wheats we have ever seen, being 
only about 1 8 inches high. The straw is thick and 
very stocky, and the variety would, perhaps, do well 
for very wet soils, on which tall straw crops are in- 
evitably laid. But for best wheat lands it would be 
more curious than profitable. It is the unlooked-for 
results of crosses of this kind that give interest to the 
work, and provide us with curious problems in breeding. 
But it must not be thought for one moment that the 
results are only of the “ curious ” order, for in nearly 
all the cases the result of the cross is not only a com- 
bination of the special characteristics of the two parents, 
but the new varieties are stronger in plant, longer and 
fuller in ear, and earlier to mature than the parents. 
As a rule red and white wheats have been crossed, and 
the produce is generally very translucent and of a light 
amber colour. The object of this cross is to provide a 
wheat that will avoid the necessity for the mixing of the 
two varieties for milling purposes. 
A second lot of experiments relate to last year’s 
hybridisations, and, speaking generally, the same results 
are here apparent. What bids fair to be an exceedingly 
early variety is a cross between Talavera and Bird- 
proof, the straw of this being fine and ears short, but 
squarer and better filled than Talavera. One between 
Club-headed and Ilallett’s Pedigree gives a variety 
that is exceedingly heavy in the ear and with fine 
long straw. 
Leaving these experiments we come to a most 
interesting series of plots, being nothing more or less 
than trials of every variety of wheat brought into Mark 
Lane from abroad. A wretched lot they are, with 
scarcely a good variety among them. Those who are 
aware of the poor agriculture, which is content with 
from 10 to 15 bushels per acre, will not be astonished 
at seeing the unimproved plants by which it is achieved. 
But the contrast between the latest perfection in the 
wheat plant, as shown on the hybridisation plots, and 
these stunted plants, is of itself a lesson as to what “the 
best” in agriculture really is. 
