1 Nov., 1898. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 337 
the progeny in a second season been more persistent. Fo the cost of cross- 
breeding has been added the infinite trouble of continual selection and yearly 
breeding, so as to secure a thoroughly fixed characterof the very best form. 
From numerous experiments it appears that something like a fixity of type 
ean be relied on in the fourth season. But until then the sporting tendencies 
of the cross-bred grain are very remarkable. Sometimes in the second and 
third generation a full-bearded variety of wheat will spring from grain of 
which there has. been the faintest possible trace of bearding in the immediate 
parentage, while other sports are partially or in some few cases wholly 
sterile. 
OBJECTS OF CROSS-BREEDING WHEATS. 
On the Canadian Government Experimental Farms, the cross-breeding of 
different wheats from every country in the world has been carried on in order 
to procure a type of wheat similar to the well-known kind known as Red Fyfe 
in the north-west, but which would ripen earlier than Ked Fyfe so as to escape 
being frosted. Previous to these experiments wheat, going under the name of 
Ladoga, was purchased from St. Petersburg and distributed as seed amongst 
the Canadian farmers, as it produced a grain very like Red Fyfe, but ripened 
sufficiently early to escape the frosts. However, this wheat was condemned by » 
the Canadian millers, as it did not produce such a strong flour, and at length 
was discarded by the farmers. In England, in spite of the apathy of the 
Boara of Agriculture in this direction, seed-growers have carried out a large 
number of experiments, and produced vigorous wheat plants of distinct types. 
The object of the English seed-growers has been to develop the eur, so as to 
get a larger yield per acre, and to make the plants hardier in order that they 
might resist disease, without paying any attention to quality of gluten. It 
seemed to be the rule that the greater the antiquity of a crop, consequently 
the more artificial the conditions under which it was grown, the more liable 
did it become to the ravages of parasitic pests, both insect and fungal. In fact, 
it is believed that no erop is grown in the world which has so many insidious 
foes working against it as the wheat crop. We can eas#y understand why 
seed-growers desire to “ cross” wheat in order to lengthen the wheat ears of a 
crop; and so get a greater number of grains per acre, from the very singular 
fact, pointed out by Major Hallett in the autumn of 1881 in the Nineteenth 
Century. He states :—No matter what the quantity of seed sown, the number 
of ears of wheat produced per acre is, in the absence of injurious circumstances, 
virtually the same—about 12 million, the different quantities of seed having 
been sown each under the best conditions of time and space. 
DRILLED. 
1873. Quantity per acre, "4" arden Bars on an acre. | Counted 1874, 
11th October : av iy 1 bushel 263 1,272,920 
- 11th October... a a5 aes 283 1,369,720 June 4 
End of 11th October si Ph 265 1,282,600 : 
8rd November ...  ... —«.- BY apy 269 1,301,960 
2a 5 270 1,306,800 At harvest. 
) 1,350 5) 6,534,000 
Aver. 270 1,306,800 
PLANTED. 
4 bushel in 
September 5b ite ... |S single grains 276 1,835,840 June 4. 
9in by 9in. 
