THE WHEAT PL...iNT.*
AT Chelmsford a few days before Christmas the Essex County Farmers' Union presented a rose-bowl to Professor Biffen, of Cambridge, for introducing new varieties of wheat, especially the " Yeoman " and the " Little Joss," while a similar honour was paid to Mr. Beaven for popularizing a new kind of barley, called " Plumage Archer." Townsmen reading of the affair must have begun to realize that wheat is not a standardized product like iron or copper and that there arc different kinds of wheat which suit different soils and have varying yields. We are not sure that even farmers know how large and complex the wheat lamily is. Probably the botanical expert alone will not be surprised at the astonishing multiplicity of. forms of the wheat plant which is revealed in the masterly treatise just produced by Professor Percival, of Reading. This formidable work, based on many years of study and experiment, shows that there are some two thousand varieties of wheat in the collection at the Reading College Farm, and it describes and figures a vast number of them. Yet we need not wonder at this, in view of the fact that wheat has been cultivated in Europe and Asia from the earliest times and is now grown in almost every part of the world outside the low-lying lands in the tropics, under widely dissimilar conditions of soil, altitude and climate. Wheat has ripened within the Arctic Circle in Norway and Siberia, at an altitude of 8,000 feet in Ecuador and of 14,000 feet in Tibet, in the moist climate of Northern Scotland and in arid countries where no rain falls between sowing and harvest. It is harvested in one country or another all the year round. Rice still forms the principal food of a large portion of the human race, but the world's wheat crops are greater than the rice crops and are ever increasing with the demand. The wheat problem is in some respects the most important that confronts mankind. The man who can increase the yield of the wheat plant will be a true benefactor.
Professor Percival's great treatise is necessarily too technical to be discussed in detail, but we may outline its contents. He gives first a detailed account of the wheat plant, its structure and growth. Then he proceeds to face the extremely difficult question of classification. He distinguishes two wild' species and eleven races of cultivated wheats, including—besides the familiar eight—Khorasan wheat, Egyptian cone• wheat and • The Wheat PIGA A Monograph. 13y John Percival. Loudon Duckworth. 638. nett Indian dwarf wheat. The description of these species and races with their endless variations necessarily fills about half the book. The bread wheat, Triticum rulgare, shows the greatest diversity. More than 1,300 forms of it " have been collected and studied for many years at Reading." To classify these is as trouble- some, the author thinks, as to classify the races of mankind. He recognizes seven main groups of bread wheats ; half of them, it may be noted, are bearded, so that the town-dweller glancing at the fields need not assume that any cereal with a beard must be barley. The art of the miller consists in blending several of these bread wheats, with different characteristics, so as to pro- duce the particular flour that is desired. It is for the farmer to choose the variety which shall yield most under given conditions, and this, as the book shows, is by no means a simple matter. Professor Percival has very definite views on the old question of the origin of the bread wheat. It is, he maintains, a hybrid derived from two or more distinct species of wheat—the wild, small spelt, a grass found in the Balkans, and wild emmer, which is found in Syria and Western Persia. Man has been experi- menting with these and other wheats since the Stone Age, aided by the caprice of weather and soil and by the unconscious intervention of birds and insects. Chance has played a great part in the evolution of varieties. The author reminds us that the famous Red Fife, largely grown in Canada and the United States, was derived from a stray sample taken from a Baltic cargo by a Glasgow man and sent to his friend, David Fife, in Ontario about 1842. Marquis, which, is superseding Red Fife in districts afflicted by early frosts, is a cross between Red Fife and an Indian wheat. Professor Percival describes with equal care the other main races of wheat, such as emmer which flourishes on a light soil, macaroni wheat which enjoys a drought, Polish wheat which is a delicate spring variety, rivet or cone wheat which has a very high yield and is not injured by " rust," club or dwarf wheat which was grown by primitive man and is still cultivated in Turkestan as well as on poor soils elsewhere, and spelt, a very hardy form which is largely grown in Central Europe. We may direct attention to the notable chapter on hybridization, which explains the general principles on which Professor Biffen and other discoverers of new wheats are patiently working. Incidentally, the author assures us that there is no foundation for the stories about grain from Egyptian tombs having germinated. He has tested grain of known ages at Rothamsted and has found that few samples over fifteen years old will germinate. Professor Petrie has tried in vain to grow the seeds that he has found during his explorations in Egypt. The economic aspect of the matter is discussed in a closing chapter on yield. The world's wheat harvest exceeds 3,500,000,000 bushels, and it must be increased. For the years 1908-13 the average yield per acre was only 13 bushels. The United States, the largest producer, had an average crop of 685,000,000 bushels with an average of 14 bushels to the acre. European Russia, which came second with 666,000,000 bushels, had an average yield of only 11 bushels to the acre. India came third with 351,000,000 bushels and an average of 12 bushels to the acre. It will surprise many readers to know that France stood fourth, with 317,000,000 bushels, thanks to the skill and industry of her farmers, who secured an average yield of 20 bushels to the acre. Canada, with 19 bushels to the acre, had a crop of 204,000,000 bushels ; since 1913, of course, Canada has greatly increased her wheat crop. Italy and Hungary came next, followed by Germany with an average crop of 153 million bushels. It is to be noted that Germany had an average yield of 32 bushels to the acre, equal to ours, although she produced two and a-half times as much wheat on soil which was, on the whole, much inferior to our wheat land. Argentina, Spain and Asiatic Russia were next in order ; no other countries produced wheat crops exceeding 100,000,000 bushels. Denmark, Belgium and Holland had the highest average yields per acre. All the countries with yields of over 30 bushels an acre were in Western Europe, except New Zealand. The author shows that in England the average yield rose from 8 bushels an acre in the Middle Ages to about 27 bushels in 1850. Thus far, the increase was due to improvements in cultivation. Since then the increase, to 31 or 32 bushels an acre, has, he thinks, been more apparent than real, because the poorer land has been devoted to other crops. The largest yield recorded on a field of more than one acre was 117.2 bushels, grown in 1895 on a field of 18 acres in the State of Washington. For England, apparently, the record is held by Mr. Alfred Amos, of Wye, Kent, who in 1918, on a4 field of 31 acres, had an average yield of 96 bushels of Yeoman wheat. If such results could be generally attained, we should have no reason to fear a scarcity of bread. But Professor Percival hastens to point out that the yield per acre fluctuates within very wide limits according to the season. Thus in 1863, which was a remarkably good year, an ordinary plot at Rothamsted yielded 44 bushels to the acre, while in 1879, a very bad year, the same plot yielded only 16 bushelsto the acre. A wet autumn is more unfavourable.to wheat than a severe winter, and the best farming cannot make up for the vagaries of the weather. Never- theless, it is certain that much may be done, by a careful selection of seed and by judicious manuring, to increase the average yield, other things being equal, and we are sure that Professor Percival's invaluable work will assist to this end.
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