The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-08-18
So BUSHELS OF
WHEAT AN ACRE
IS WHAT FARMERS ARE AFTER
That Is the Slogan In Iowa, and 1t Is
to Come BY Improving Seed BY
Scientific Means.

DIES MONIES, Aug. 17.-"SiXtyfve
bushels to the acre!" is the slogan of
the Western Grain Dealers association
as a result of the remarkable work in
grain-breeding of Professor b, w.
. Crossley, Iowa's Burbank in the wheat
world. This association includes all
the big wheat men in this part of the
|. country, and at it's headquarters here
there is nothing but optimism heard.
The present bumper wheat crop has
caused most of this feeling, but Sec
rotary George A. Wells of the associa-
ton is positive that every farmer in
Iowa can duplicate the work of Pro-
fessor Crossley
Raising wheat with microscope
pays.
Another stanch advocate of better
wheat through breeding is H. G..
Bell, secretary of the small grain
growers association and a professor
at Ames college. The method used by
Professor Bell and WI CHI has drawn
attention from farmers all over the
country is nearly like the Crossley
work
Scent Gener'' Plan.
Professor Bell calls the emthod the
cent gener" plan, from two French
words. First, of course, comes the
choice of one grain of wheat from
which in a few years thousands of
acres of bonanza crops must spring.
This grain is the ancestor of billions of
other grains.
Incubated, nursed along, fed with
fertilizer the grain finally becomes a
bearing wheat-stalk and from this
stalk the resultant wheat berries are
separated carefully.
Then the microscope comes into use.
One hundred of the best grains are
saved. These are planted, as in the
Crossley process 10 to a room, in 10
rows. Hence the name, cent gener."
This Gent gener' process is continued
until the perfection of wheat grains
for seed purposes has been reached.
At certain degrees of the breeding,
pollen from other stalks is mixed with
the pollen on the parent stalks, so that
different strains may be mixed into
the seed wheat at the proper time.
Finally 1-2O of an acre is planted
with the perfect seed.
This is threshed separately and used
as seed the following year, when
double or sometimes four times the
quantity is planted.
When an acre finally is planted and
grown from. the selected seed, it is
pr city safe wager that the yield will
come close to the ideal 65-bushel
standard.
A few years ago such an achieve
ment would be called wonderful on
virgin soil. Now it is being done more
and more each year in Iowa.
YDl. 60, r,ft1
all strap and a hirsute decoration that
shamed Uncle Sans or Uncle Joe's,
is as different from the farmers in
Iowa nowadays as black from white.
Go into the remotest village in the
wheat country, and it's an even chance
you hear the honk-honk of an auto
before the hee-haw of the village
mule.
1t is such work as Messrs. Bell and
Crossley are carrying on that has
wrought this change. The farmer is
backward-he has to be coaxed to
adopt means for his own welfare.
Every member of the Western
Grain Dealers association has been
sent an outfit of inquiry and report
ing blanks on which each will give the
data to Secretary Wells on his crop.
This will be forwarded to Ames, and
farmers whose crops are backward"
will get instructions on how to i'm
prove their soil, and, incidentally, how
to raise their bank balances.
The principle Messrs. Crossley and
Bell use is as old as the time of Vir
gil, who tells in the Had how the
ancients saved the best ears of grain
for planting purposes.