IMPROVEMENT GUINED BY PLANT BREEDING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2803, 4 December 1907, Page 9

IMPROVEMENT GUINED BY PLANT BREEDING.

"What can te done by a careful choice of seed and plant selection is sho-wn clearly in the last report of the Canadian Experimental Union. The Agricultural College of Ontario has introduced into the variety tests on its experimental farm ) about 2000 varieties of field crops. This testing has been followed by the persistent improvement by 6ced selection of those varieties_proving best, and by the yearly distribution through the Experimental Union of the latest and beslimproved stocks. The following table shows how these improved stocks hare compared, under the conditions of these experiment station tests, with some of the leading standard varieties used in the province^ Here no factors entered to give differences in yields save the hereditary powers of the respective varieties. The experimenter's skill introduced, discerned, and improved those which through a long series of years proved to yield the largest value per acre. Comparative results in plots at Ontario Agricultural College of sonic new and old varieties:— k as fit "2 I 2I 2 Varieties. - |-g £ g g v t*S ton £ a Siberian oats .. t? .« .. '16 88.2 23 Black Tartarian 16 71.5 — M&ndscheuri barley .. .. 16 69.8 19 Mensury barley 16 58.7 — Dawson Golden Chaff W.W. 10 57.3 11 Early Red Clawsor .. .. 10 51.6 — Empire State potatoes .. 16 231.0 13 White Elephant 46 203.7 — The practical results of these improvements is demonstrated by the average increase in bushels per acre in Ontario, calculated for periods of 10 years, thus : — The yields per acre of Ontario's entire area of winter wheat, barley, and oats for the first 10 years of this work, before these varieties had been much improved, and for the second 10-year period, just closed: — Average yields in bushels per acre for Ontario : — c. t.*. ■ . *"£ h S ?« |S £$ la Winter wheat vr .. .. 19-2 21.7 13 Barley • •• 24.8 30.6 24 Oata .r .. .. 82.2 33.3 19 It will be easily understood what this ( increase means in the agricultural pro-- j perky of the country, and nothing could demonstrate more clearly thp wisdom of liberal expenditure on scientific research and experimental stations.