A TRIUMPH OF MENDELISM IN WHEAT BREEDING. 47 
A Triumph of Mendelism in Wheat Breeding. 
Professor Biffin’s Work at Cambridge University. 
By W. Catton Grasby, F.L.S. (Read March 12th, 
1912.) 
ABSTRACT. 
(Printed in full in the West Australian, June 10th, 1912.) 
When our secretary called and asked me if 1 would 
read a short paper this evening, I happened to have before 
me the Report of the Incorporated National Association 
of British and Irish Millers on the returns received from 
twenty-nine growers in various parts of the United Kingdom 
and Ireland, giving the harvest results, the weight per 
bushel, and the candid opinion of growers on the new 
wheat, Burgovne’s Fife, raised by Professor Biffin at the 
Agricultural Department of the Cambridge University. 
Our societv has devoted some attention to Mendelism, and 
it occurred to me that a few notes on this demonstration 
of the practical or utilitarian value of the application of 
Mendel’s laws to a subject of national importance to Western 
Australia could not fail to be of interest. 
Another consideration was that tin's seemed an op- 
portunity for illustrating the practical application of Mendel’s 
laws. At the present time most people confuse Mendelism 
with the experiments in crossing round and wrinkled, and 
tall and short peas, or at most with the results obtained 
by cross-breeding Albino and waltzing mice, or may be 
certain peculiar breeds of fancy rabbits. It is perhaps 
quite natural that these oft-repeated and described examples 
of Mendel’s laws should thus have led people to look upon 
Mendelism as a scientific hobby. 
It must be remembered that the most noted of breeders 
of animals and plants whose names are familiar to all, 
to a greater or lesser extent used without knowing it the 
principles which Mendel proved to be natural law . This 
was the case with the late Mr. Farrer, who must be recognised 
as the greatest wheat breeder up to the present time. With- 
out the advantage of a knowledge of any fixed laws on the 
-subject, Farrer set himself the task of breeding wheats 
which would be suited to Australian conditions, be disease 
resistant and would combine the various recognised valuable 
qualities of the most useful wheats of the world. He w as 
laughed at and considered a crank and for years received 
little encouragement except from fellow' dreamers. How 
keenly he felt this 1 know from the correspondence I had 
with "him in the early nineties, but to-day his wheats, 
especially Federation, are more widely grown than any 
others all over Australia. Had he been spared, I have 
