200 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



tion and color. In doing this, his University training in 

 chemistry stood him in good stead. One of the most re- 

 markable features of the work of Dr. Saunders is that he 

 not only crosses wheats, selects their progeny, propagates 

 the selections on plots and in fields, and records all their 

 field characteristics such as yield and earliness, but that 

 he also carries out all the needful baking and milling tests 

 himself in his own laboratory. 



British millers demand from Canada hard red spring 

 wheat which shall produce flour which shall not only be 

 white and have good absorption but which shall have the 

 highest possible baking strength. The strong Canadian 

 flour is perhaps not the best for making loaves with di- 

 rectly, so far as the consumer is concerned, but it is in- 

 valuable for mixing purposes. The British miller has 

 plenty of soft wheat at his disposal and thus can readily 

 obtain an abundance of flour which is relatively weak. 

 He therefore mixes the strong Canadian flour with the 

 weaker flour from soft wheats and thus produces a stand- 

 ard flour of his own design. On account of there being 

 much more soft wheat for sale than hard wheat, the latter, 

 in accordance with the law of supply and demand, natu- 

 rally fetches the higher price. There is, therefore, a very 

 good reason why the Red Fife and Marquis wheat of west- 

 ern Canada, which produce flour of the very highest bak- 

 ing strength, should be so much sought for in the British 

 market. 



From the first, when selecting new wheats, Dr. Saun- 

 ders bore the requirements of the British market in mind ; 

 and he determined never to send out from Ottawa to the 

 farmers of the West, for general cultivation, any new va- 

 riety of wheat which would be inferior to Red Fife in its 

 milling and baking qualities. This, of course, led to 

 scores of rejections of otherwise promising varieties, and 



