SEED GRAIN IMPROVEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8128, 7 June 1906, Page 4

SEED GRAIN IMPROVEMENT.

CANADIAN ENTERPRISE. I A LESSON FOR AUSTRALASIA. One of tho urgent reforms wanted in the grain fields of Australasia is careful selection and improvement of seeds. The general practice is to take the seed froiu tho bulk crop. This is a mistake, because even when the grain looks plump and clean to the eye it contains a largo percentage of pinched grain, deficient in vitality, as well as a quantity of weed seeds—wild oafs, drake, and other rubbish—which rob the crop of nourishment and depress' the average yield. A great advance has been made in recent .years in Victoria and also in tho other Australian State ll in manuring the grain crops and providing a better seed-bed by improved methods of tillage. The three last wheat harvests, the finest Australia has ever reaped, are not all doe to favourable seasons. There were fine seasons before, but never 6uch uniformly fine yields, and if the old slipshod methods >t ten years ago had still prevailed, ■!■ > harvests, though doubtless good, ,i.iU not have been so remarkably

iiue. What is wanted now to crown this forward movement with success is a seed improvement campaign, such as Canada has followed for some years ifith great success. Canada is determined to raise her average wheat yield, it is a shade under 20 bushels per acre, and a long way behind that of ijreat Britain, which is at the head of the world (in spite of all her disabilities) with the wonderful average of 32 bushols. Australia, with her average of 8 to 10 bushels per acre, Russia with 9 Argentina with Hi, and the United States with 13.J, are all countries with low average yields, and the way to force Iheiu up' is improved methods of cultivation, and no method is complete which leaves out careful seed selection. Tho Canadian Department of Agriculture has formed seed-growers' associations in the farming districts, and has enlisted <tlie assistance of the State teachers and the school children in the work of improving seed grain. This year, with tlie assistance of the directors of the Oanadian-l'aciiie Railway, it made a remarkable demonstration, j which rivettod public attention en the I natlo:i;.l -value of raising the average wheat yield. The story of this, enterprise is well told in a fanners' journal ■called the "East and West" of February 17, 1906. It says:— "Oil. the Bth cf January an unusual train stood on tho C.l'.R. tracks at Brandon," Man., ready for the start. It was the much-talked-of seed train, ready to start on its trip of two months through Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, to demonstrate to farmers, by lecture and illustration, that good, clean seed, careful y selected, will give so much better results in tl)3 quality and quantity of tiie yield as to make tho extra labour far and away worth while. Working together, the Seed Branch of the Dom.nion Agricultural Department, and the officials of the great western railways, planned to send out this train through the western whoat growing lands, with a large staff cf lecturers, consisting of experts from tho experimental farms, professors from tho agricultural colleges, botanists, and-entomologists (onp of them widely known as the and weed man*), besides pract'eal farmers and others. Stops of an hour or moio were to be made at 194 stations, beginning at Brandon, and en.ling, after a wideswseping, circular route, at Swan River, Man. The farmers, h.iv;ng been notified beforehand of the time ef the arrival of the train, would he on hand, and so no time would bo l'ost by the muddles which occurred in the settlelecturers in getting to work. Two coaches were-fitted up with seating accommodation for the and once, with a littlo platform for the speaker at one end, and in addition there were great piles of literature to he given away, and 'jars of wheat in all stages of dh't and smut,' for demonstration. The walls of the day-ear offered an entire novelty in tho decoration of train coaches, for every inch of space was utilised to display splendid sheaves of wheat, barley, rye. brorne, or clover from the experimental farms, in orde; to show what the country ought to produce, alternating with specimens ol " noxious weeds, carefully labelled, as examples of what to avoid; besides, there were tubes with samples of va; i ous grades of wheat—wheat rcjecte because of weeds; wheat grown from plump seed; wheat grown from shiunked seed; wheat spoiled by smut and rust, and ncmerous specinients of the standard grades. A strikin-*' initiation was tho contrast between tv.n boxes of growing wheat plant,, one from plump, hand-selected seed, one from small, shrunken seed. In tho first six days of the trip 24 meetings were held, with an average attendance of 123, and a total attendance of 2950 eager, interested, practical farmers."