114 Agricultural Education and Forestry Exhibition , 1905. 
the results obtained in the Department’s plant-breeding 
experiments. Some account of the methods adopted in 
plant breeding, was given at page 337 of the Journal for 
1904 (Yol. 65). 
The exhibits sent were intended to demonstrate the 
progress which has already been made. There is no variety 
of wheat generally cultivated in this country suitable for the 
direct manufacture of flour for bread making, and our English 
wheat can only be utilised for blending with “strong” foreign 
wheats. 1 In spite of the introduction of numerous new varieties, 
the quality of the home-grown product is steadily deteriorating. 
Recent work has shown conclusively that this is in no way 
due to climatic influences, as is popularly supposed, and that 
“ strong ” wheat can be grown as readily as our own inferior 
grain. Unfortunately these strong varieties are not altogether 
satisfactory in their yield of straw and grain, and consequently 
they can only be cultivated under exceptional conditions. 
To overcome this difficulty a number of wheats known to 
retain their strength in this country have been crossed with 
high-yielding varieties, with the object of raising new types 
combining both yield and “ strength.” 1 
The hybrids exhibited were chosen chiefly with the object 
of showing that hybridising, instead of being a haphazard 
process of more than doubtful value, can, now that the laws of 
heredity are becoming known, be relied upon to give perfectly 
definite results to the plant breeder. Thus all the types 
obtained as the results of crossing Rough Chaff with Golden 
Drop and Polish with Rivet wheat were shown. The fixity of 
the selected forms has been amply demonstrated, and the 
experimental plots have proved to be as level and as uniform 
as those of the oldest types in cultivation. An extraordinarily 
complex group of forms obtained by crossing the highly diverse 
Rivet and Red King wheats was displayed ; yet, in spite of this 
complexity, the results could be predicted with considerable 
accuracy before even making the cross. All these new types 
proved valueless commercially, and would ultimately find 
their way into the waste heaps. 
Specimens were shown of the ears and grain of a number 
of the fixed types of “ strong ” wheats already obtained, which 
are now being tested for yielding power alongside standard 
English varieties. As far as could be judged from a few dozen 
specimens, they were in no way inferior to these in productive- 
ness, while their grain was worth several shillings per quarter 
more. 
1 The term “ strength ” is used by millers to indicate the relative capacity 
of flour to make a good loaf of large size. 
