2S0 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



1874; as early as 1875 it was gcrown by David Woodman of Paw Paw^ 

 aiul two years later it bad become the most popnlai- variety in the State 

 and was in jjreat demand by farmers for seed. In that year, however, a 

 serious cheek was jjiven to the culture of this variety by an unfavorable 

 attitude assumed toward it by certain millers and dealers in wheat. 

 This hostility seems to have made its first appearance in a resolution 

 passed by the Michigran State Millers' Association at its session 

 in Detroit in Au<::ust of that year, in which the Clausen was placed at the 

 foot of the list of five varieties recommended for cultivation. The {jjround 

 of opposition was that it was considered an inferior variety "for the 

 manufacture of flour," beinj; particularly deficient in gluten. This . 

 action bv the Michis2:an millers was followed bv similar action in other 

 states, with the result that the Clausen wheat became very generally 

 discriminated against in the market and many farmers who had expected 

 to sow this variety sowed other kinds instead. At this juncture a number 

 of farmers of this State api)lied to the authorities at the Agricultural 

 College to decide whether the objections raised to this variety by the 

 millers and grain dealers were valid. To determine this question, the 

 Chemist of the College, Dr. R. C. Kedzie, conducted by direction of the 

 Board of Agriculture an exhaustive series of experiments upon the value 

 of the flour made from different varieties of wheat and announced as 

 his conclusion that Clauson flour "holds a good rank," and that "neither 

 in the chemical composition nor in the physical proi)erties of the flour of 

 this variety of wheat does there exist any good ground for the demand to- 

 strike it from the list of wheats to be cultivated in this State." Largely 

 as a result of this announcement, which was widely published in the 

 succeeding fall and winter, the opposition to the Clanson wheat grad- 

 ually abated, and for many years thereafter it was grown throughout 

 this and adjoining states much more than any other variety. It is still' 

 one of our most popular wheats, though for the past few years a number 

 of other kinds have also come to be largely grown. One complaint now 

 made against the Clauson is that it has been so long cultivated and 

 become so mixed with other varieties in threshing that it is diflScult to 

 get pure seed. One of the purest sources of supply of this variety of which 

 we are informed is in the township of Gaines, Kent county. In the sum- 

 mer of 1895 Mr. C. G. A. Voigt, a miller of Grand Rapids, sent to the- 

 station a sample of wheat taken from a load purchased from a farmer 

 of the above township. This wheat w^eighed 01 pounds to the bushel and' 

 was reported to have yielded that season 42 bushels to the acre. The 

 wheat was so fine and heavy and the reported yield so large that Mr. 

 Voigt thought it must be a new variety. The report from the staliou* 

 failed to confirm this opinion, however, and a few weeks later a represen- 

 tative of the station visited the farm on which the wheat was grown and 

 became satisfied from the history of the wheat and from specimens col- 

 lected that the variety was White Clauson. To distinguish this straiu of 

 wheat however the name Corinth Clauson, suggested by Dr. R. C. Kedzie, 

 has sometimes been applied to it, the name being given from the fact that 

 the wheat was grown near the village of Corinth. A small quantity of 

 this wheat was obtained and sown on the college farm in the fall of 1895 

 where it proved to be a very pure strain of White Clauson wheat. The 

 following year the above locality was again visited and arrangements- 



