THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8245, 25 September 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1906.

One of the arguments that [was used in favour of reducing the duty on Australian Hour coming into New Zealand was that it posesses a "strength" for bread-making purposes that is lacking m flour made from our own wheat, This quality of "strength" is possessed by a number of American and Canadian wheats, by a few grown in Russia, and to a considerable extent by some in Australia. It is said to be generally absont from New Zealand wheat, and is conspicuously so from English wheat. Apparently, however, there is some prospect that in time English wheat will take on

the qualities that make some foreign wheats so useful to the baker in the produotiou of light bread. Some years ago a committee appointed by the British Millers' Association to investigate the master found that certain Canadian and Russian wheats had retained their "strong" character after being grown in England for a number of years, but they suffered from weakness of straw, poor yielding power, and liability to "rust." It was clear tbnt if these undesirable qualities oould te bred out of these wheats they would increase enormously in value. Tbe facts discovered aud the conclusions arrived at lay within the soope of any good farmer, but any further advance could be made only by the aid of science. The Millers' tiou therefore called in the servioes of the botanist to the Agricultural Department of the University of Cambridge. This gentleman at once recoguised that what are known as "Mendel's Principles" entered largely into the task he was invited to undertake. i\ contemporary explains these principles at considerable length. If two dissimilar varieties of wheat, ono having red smooth chaffed ears and the other white rough chaffed ears, are crossed together, the second generation shows four types. By a law which is ap pareutly singularly porsistent thise four varieties preserve ou an average certain fixed proportions. Out of every sixteen plants there will be nine with red' rough chaff, thres with red smooth, three with white rough, and one with white smooth. The last will, it is asserted, breed perfectly true to its* characteristics, but except in one case in each type, no definite fixation can be obtained in the others. The Cambridge botnnist set himself to breed a "strong" wheat without the undesirable drawbacks attaching to the varieties flourishing in England. He took, we'are told, vigorous English wheats, with their stiff straw aiid fine cropping power, and orossed them with foreign "strong" wheats with poor straw and indifferent cropping power. The experiments continued for five years, and this year he baß in cultivation at the University's experimental farm about thirty new fixed types, some of whioh have all the qualities that are dasired.