Yellow-berry in Wheat 
i i 
and perhaps concurrently, with the experiments on which this con¬ 
clusion is based, made quite a series of experiments upon, ‘‘Individ¬ 
ual and varietal inheritance of yellow-berry,” the conclusion of 
which does not seem to be altogether satisfactory or decisive. Not 
being, perhaps, a competent judge, I will not venture to formulate 
a conclusion, but will again give the authors' own language. 
“In view of the fact that but one head from each plant of the pedi¬ 
gree stocks had to furnish the grains on which an estimate of the per¬ 
centage yield of yellow-berry in the plant as a whole was based, the re¬ 
sult is really surprisingly confirmatory of our hypothesis that the yellow- 
berry is a ‘tendency’ which finds expression in certain strains or races 
more markedly than in others, and is heritable. 
“In so far as this is the case, the yellow-berry problem is one which 
is capable of being handled by the breeder with a view to the propagation 
of pure strains of wheat which may be found free from the yellow-berry 
under all conditions. It, therefore seems reasonable to hope that from 
a group of pure strains of pedigree wheats producing no yellow-berry for 
two successive years—which we have—a race of wheat may be derived 
which will go entirely wide of this tendency to deterioration in the pro¬ 
duct.” 
I believe that this quotation presents the conclusion which the 
' authors would have us draw from their results as clearly and fair¬ 
ly as they have anywhere stated it. One thing seems clear, that is, 
that while they admit that the weather influences the development 
of yellow-berry they sought throughout their work some specific 
cause for it and think that it is to be found in some inherent qual¬ 
ity in the strain or race of wheat which may be strengthened by 
climatic conditions and the length of the growing season. 
In 1913 Prof. H. L. Bolley of North Dakota returns to the 
subject in Bulletin 107 of that station entitled “Wheat; Soil Trou¬ 
bles and Seed Deterioration; Causes of Soil Sickness in Wheat 
Lands; Possible Methods of Control; Cropping Methods in 
Wheat.” We are concerned only with what he says regarding the 
subject of yellow-berry. Prof. Bolley throughout this bulletin 
speaks of deteriorated wheat and seems to include under this term 
a variety of things which evidently may have different causes, for, 
as Prof. Bolley himself states, the problem is a complex one, but he 
gives us no clear analysis of the deterioration had in mind and 
appeals to diseases of the plant to account for deterioration in gen¬ 
eral. There is no doubt but that Prof. Bolley is entirely correct in 
maintaining that disease may cause the death of plants or curtail 
their productiveness, but he seems to attribute practically all de¬ 
terioration to disease, or infestation of some kind, and to minimize 
the current teaching relative to the importance of those questions 
of' food supply in the soil, generally had in mind when we speak of 
