DISCOVERY OF MARQUIS WHEAT 151 



home at London, Ontario, on September 13, 1914, at the 

 ripe old age of 78. The most important of all the lines of 

 endeavor which he initiated at Ottawa, undoubtedly, was 

 the raising of new cereals ; and it is its highly successful 

 continuation by his third son Charles that we shall now at- 

 tempt to follow. 



III. The Selection of Marquis hy Dr. Charles E. Saunders 



Dr. Charles E. Saunders, on becoming the Cerealist for 

 the Dominion of Canada, took up his quarters at the Cen- 

 tral Experimental Farm at Ottawa and there carefully 

 re-selected all the more or less mixed wheats which came 

 into his hands. The result of this work was that in 1904 

 he discovered Marquis Wheat. By reference to the ex- 

 perimental records, proof was obtained that this particular 

 strain had been produced from one of the crossings made 

 in 1892 bv his brother, Dr. A. P. Saunders, during the 

 period when Dr. William Saunders and his two sons were 

 working together. ^ The male parent of the cross was i 

 Red Fife and the female an early ripening Indian wheat l-^ 

 known as Hard Red Calcutta. It is to be noted, however, ' 

 that Hard Red Calcutta is a trade expression, not for one 

 particular variety of wheat but for a mixture of several 

 varieties. There must, therefore, always be a certain 

 amount of doubt as to the exact type which sensed as 



10 Dr. Arthur Percy Saunders took his degree of Ph. D. at Johns 

 Hopkins University, and is now Professor of Chemistry at Hamilton 

 College, Clinton, New York State, U. S. A. His father needed 

 some one with trained fingers to make some cereal crosses, and 

 Dr. A. P. Saunders therefore undertook this work during one or 

 two of his summer vacations. Thus his connection with agricul- 

 ture in the larger sense of the term was of a very temporary nature. 

 However, the influence of his early years spent at the Experimental 

 Farm remains with him yet; for, although by profession a chemist, 

 he is also an enthusiastic amateur florist and a breeder of peonies, 

 etc. 



