On crossing immune and susceptible varieties the resulting offspring is susceptible.

On self-fertilization these susceptible individuals produce immune and susceptible descendants in the proportion of one of the former to three of the latter. The degree of susceptibility is variable.

Where the degree of susceptibility differs in the two parents the hybrid resembles the more susceptible parent in that respect. Among the descendants of such hybrids the two degrees of susceptibility appear in the usual Mendelian ratio of one slightly to three very susceptible individuals.

The relatively immune forms breed true to this characteristic in the succeeding generations.

Immunity is independent of any discernible morphological character, and it is practicable to breed varieties morphologically similar to one another, but immune or susceptible to the attacks of certain parasitic fungi.

It has been known for a long time that there exist varieties of wheats and other cereals which appear to be practically free from, or immune to, the attacks of certain fungal parasitic pests, by which closely allied forms are ravaged.

Attention is drawn to the complexity of the ideas comprised in the term strength as applied to flour, and the necessity of investigating each idea separately.

The chemical composition of the gliadin and glutenin of strong and weak flours has been investigated, and it is shown that they are identical in all the flours examined. It is suggested therefore that the difference between strong and weak flours is connected rather with the physical properties of their gluten than with the chemical composition. Since it is well known that the physical properties of proteids are profoundly affected by small quantities of acids, alkalis, and salts, the amounts of these substances in strong and weak flours were determined. In the few cases examined, it was found that strength was associated with a high ratio of proteid to salts, and weakness with a low ratio. It is suggested that the variation of this ratio may be the explanation of the different physical behaviour of the gluten of strong and weak flours, and that this is the factor which determines that component of strength which governs the shape of the loaf, and its power of retaining gas. This point is receiving further investigation.

The factor which primarily determines the size of the loaf which a flour can make is quite distinct. The size of the loaf is shown to depend in the first instance on the amount of sugar contained in the flour together with that formed in the dough by diastatic action. It is proposed to measure this by incubating the flour with yeast and water, and collecting the carbon dioxide evolved during 24 hours. Particular attention should be paid to the rate of gas evolution in the later stages of the fermentation, as this is shown to be more directly connected with the size of the loaf.

Taking Humphries and Biffen's definition of strength as “the capacity for making large well-piled loaves,” and applying the above ideas, it is stated that the largeness of the loaf depends chiefly on the capacity of the flour to give off gas when fermented with yeast, especially in the later stages of dough fermentation, and the suggestion is made that shapeliness, and probably gas retention, are dependent on the physical properties of the gluten as modified by the presence of varying proportions of salts.

In 1904, Sir James Blyth, Bart., a member of the Cambridge University Board of Agricultural Studies, offered a Scholarship tenable by a student who had taken the University Diploma in Agriculture, for the purpose of enabling him to spend a year in research. The offer was gratefully accepted, and the Scholarship was awarded to Mr F. W. Foreman. Mr Foreman submitted as a subject for investigation the Composition of certain of the Soils of Cambridgeshire. This subject was approved, and the work was carried out in the winter months of 1904—1905. The results are given in the following pages.

The following experiments on the hybridisation of barley were commenced in 1901; consequently the inheritance of some of the characteristics has been known for some time. In view of the fact that from the earlier accounts of Rimpau and Tschermak the main outlines of the story could be traced without any special difficulty, there appeared to be no necessity for immediate publication. This was delayed, therefore, in order to complete the investigation of one or two doubtful points. The literature of barley-breeding published prior to the year 1900 is rather extensive, but of comparatively little interest to the modern student of heredity. The most important papers are those of Liebscher and Rimpau. That part of Rimpau's great paper, “Kreuzungprodukte Landwirtschaftliche Kulturpflanzen,” dealing with barley, is of exceptional interest on account of its extreme thoroughness and the completeness of the records it contains. As one reads it one cannot help thinking that Rimpau must have come very near to making an independent discovery of Mendel's laws of inheritance.

Two pairs of young heifers were fed on a weighed and analysed diet, and their dung was sampled and analysed both in the fresh and in the rotted states.

It was found that the fresh dung contained about ¾ths of the nitrogen, ⅔rds of the phosphoric acid, and ⅞ths of the potash consumed by the animals in food and litter.

The dung made by the cake-fed animals was found to be more readily fermentable, and consequently more liable to loss during storage, than that made by the animals fed on roots and hay only.

The loss was found to fall chiefly on the ammoniacal nitrogen in which the cake-made dung is comparatively very rich.

Taking as a base-line the amounts of nitrogen and phosphoric acid in the dung of the animals fed on roots and hay only, it was found that the fresh dung of the cake-fed animals contained 82 per cent, of the nitrogen, and 70 per cent, of the phosphoric acid, of the cake they had consumed.

So great however was the loss of ammoniacal nitrogen from the cake-made dung, that after 6 months' storage under cover in the solid undisturbed state in which it was left in the boxes by the animals, only 37 per cent, of the nitrogen of the cake still remained in the rotted dung.

Dung is not usually kept so long as this, nor through such a hot time of the year, so that the average loss will probably be less than that found in the experiment, and ½ the nitrogen of purchased foods may very well be the average amount recovered in the dung.

The experiment shews however that, without any very flagrant mismanagement, the proportion recovered may fall considerably below ½, especially if the dung suffers further loss while lying on the surface of the land in dry weather.

Experiments carried out at Ghizeh during 1905 and 1906 shew that the cotton plant follows Mendel's laws of gametic segregation in certain of its characters.