EFFORTS TO INCREASE FOOD RESOURCES 



the Red Fife wheat. Its coming to Canada illustrates the 

 way cultivated plants are spread around the world. 



David Fife, living on a farm in Ontario about 1842, 

 obtained from a friend in Scotland a small quantity of 

 wheat that had been taken from a ship from Danzig. The 

 wheat had been grown somewhere in North Central Europe. 

 The quality of the grain attracted Fife's friend. The wheat 

 arrived in Canada in the spring and was planted at once, 

 but it proved to be a winter wheat. It all failed to ripen 

 except three heads that had grown from a single grain. 



Seeds often get mixed in handling. They lodge in the 

 crevices of threshing machines and are carried from farm 

 to farm. The corners and cracks of farm wagons, ware- 

 house bins, and the holds of ships contain many a kernel 

 that mixes in with a succeeding shipment. In some way 

 one kernel of spring wheat got into the seed sent to Fife 

 and was easily detected when the ripening heads stood 

 out in a field that was otherwise barren. The few seeds 

 harvested were of considerable interest to Fife, although 

 most farmers would have passed them by. Saved and sown 

 the following year, they grew well and were entirely free 

 from rust in a year when all the wheat in the neighborhood 

 was badly diseased. 



Although planted rather late and in an unfavorable 

 spot, these few plants ripened a good crop. From this 

 small beginning has come the wheat that has been grown 

 from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains as the 

 Scotch Fife, Red Fife, or Glasgow wheat. A comparison 

 has shown that Fife is identical with a variety grown in 

 Europe and known as Galician. Doubtless it could tell of 

 many interesting events in its long history from the wild. 



The early distribution of this wheat was rather slow, 

 but in the early eighties it became the principal variety 

 in Western Canada and established the reputation of the 

 Dominion as a producer of high quality milling and baking 



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