KITCHENER WHEAT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 67, 13 December 1918, Page 8

KITCHENER WHEAT

SOLDIER AND AGRICULTURE. While Lord Kitchener was on.a visit to British East Africa (says a writer in tho 'Newcastle Weekly Chronicle") he was shown over the Government Agricultural Farm at Nairobi. On a small plot of ground he noticed some fine corn growing, and he was somewhat astonished when ho was told that this was "Kitchener" wheat, and that it possessed the useful quality of being unaffected by rush For this reason it was being successfully used to blend with other samples of wheat grown in East Africa. Tho name arose thus: When Kitchener was in India, after the Eoer Wor, he was asked by some of his late opponents, who had since become warm friends, to help them to obtain samples of Tibetan wheat, a. species of which is immune from the disease known as rust. It happened that an expedition to Tibet was then on foot, and Kitchener was thus enabled to comply with their request, and he sent his African friends some dozen sacks of tho rust-immune wheat. The Boers had succeeded in obtaining a good blend of wheat with the samples thus provided by K. of K., and without asking his permission they named the product after the donor. The East African authorities had procured their specimens from South Africa, some 2000 miles, away It is worthy of notice that Kitchener was n grandson of Dr. Chevallier, who introduced many years ago the famous type of barley known •as Chevalier barley.