252 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



rieties of wheat, such as Bluestem, Fife, and Preston, by 

 Marquis, the wealth of the United States has been in- 

 creased: in 1917 by upwards of 10,000,000 bushels of 

 wheat valued at $20,000,000, and in 1918 by upwards of 

 15,000,000 bushels of wheat valued at $30,000,000. 



XXXIII. The Increased Wealth Brought hy Marquis to 



Canada 



In order to obtain a general statement of the increased 

 wealth which has been added to western Canada by the in- 

 troduction of Marquis, we may begin by assuming that the 

 wheat grown on summer fallow (or similarly prepared 

 land) represents half the total yield. ^" It seems that 



30 The phrase similarly prepared land includes ( 1 ) new breaking 

 and (2) land on which hoed crops, i.e., potatoes, Indian corn and 

 roots, were raised the previous year. The proportion of summer fal- 

 low or its equivalent is greatest in the districts which produce the 

 most wheat, i. e., central and southern Manitoba, central and south- 

 ern Saskatchewan, and southern Alberta. In those same areas Mar- 

 quis is grown almost exclusively and in many of the districts it 

 would now be almost impossible to purchase a single car-load of 

 Eed Fife. In districts like central Alberta (often called northern, 

 but central on the map) where the rainfall is heavier, summer fal- 

 lowing is much less general but there is a considerable amount of 

 new breaking. 



Very generally in western Canada the farm is divided into three 

 sections one of which is sown on summer fallow, another on stubble, 

 while the third is summer fallowed. Thus for all purposes 33.3 per 

 cent, of the land is fallow and 66.6 is available for sowing. There- 

 fore half the acreage sown is on summer fallow. On smnmer fallow 

 the crop is usually from 50 to 100 per cent, greater than that on 

 stubble, or, in other words, about three-quarters of the crop is pro- 

 duced on summer fallow. From the above considerations it is ob- 

 vious that the assumption given in the text that the wheat grown 

 on summer fallow {or similarly prepared land) represents half the 

 total yield is a conservative one. 



Since summer fallowing is not usually practiced in North Dakota, 

 South Dakota, and Minnesota to the same extent that it is in west- 

 ern Canada, it may be of interest to remark that summer fallowing 

 is found to be advantageous in western Canada for the following 



