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small and of a daik red color. The straw is fine and slender, so much 

 so, that if the weather is wet during the ripening period, it is sure to 

 lodge. A peculiarity of this variety is its tendency to shoot out or 

 throw up a number of stocks. It was formerly extensively grown in 

 the Province of Quebec and in this vicinity on both sides of the Ottawa, 

 but is now grown only by a few farmers who have good soil, principally 

 heavy clay. T am not aware that it has been grown in any other part 

 of Canada. Its name suggests whence it came to us. 



Fyfe, or as it is sometimes called Scotch wheat, is said by tradition 

 to have taken its name from a man named Fyfe, who got some out of a 

 cargo shipped from the Black Sea to Glasgow, and who brought it to 

 Canada. Others say it came to us from Fyfeshire, in Scotland. How- 

 evei", there is little doubt that originally it was a Kussian wheat. Tt 

 cori'esponds A'ery closely with a celebrated variety of Poland known as 

 Sandomir wheat, as the Black Sea does with another called Szkalmirka, 

 both being native wheats of the Yistvila country of Russian Poland. 

 Fyfe wheat is dark in color, so also are the native wheats of Hungary' 

 and Russia. Fyfe is a bald wheat, with strong straw and small berry ; 

 and as the bran is very thin, it consequently yields a hi^h percent- 

 age of flour. It varies in color from light to dark-red. It is therefore 

 called Red Fyfe, in contradistinction to White Fyfe, a very much in- 

 ferior milling wheat, its only point of resemblance being the shape cf 

 the berry. It is hardly necessary to state that the Red Fyfe contains 

 a larger percentage of gluten than any other known variety. I 

 think the line of species might be drawn between the bearded Black 

 Sea and this Fyfe wheat, and if they are nrt direct descendants 

 of prehistoric wheat, they ai'e at least not far removed from the parent 

 stock. 



Red Fyfe wheat spread from Old Canada to the Westei-n States 

 and thence to our North-West, the land of hard wheat. It is now fast 

 dving out in Ontario, being grown only in sjmts where the land is 

 new, or where the land, if old, is rich and deep. We have a few such 

 spots in the vicinity of Ottawa, one notably in the township of Eardly, 

 where, in a strip of land lying between the mountain and the river, 

 this wheat has bi-en grown for the })a«t twenty years or more, and 

 is still grown in all its purity. 



