274 



ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



X. A Biographical Note 



Mr. Seager Wheeler was born in the Isle of Wight. 

 His father and uncles were fishennen at Black Gang, a 

 place once famous for the smuggling that went on there. 

 He attended the National School at Ventnor which he 

 left when eleven years old after passing through all the 

 grades. He then worked at the W. H. Smith bookstall at 

 Ventnor Station. A few years later, in 1885, he crossed 

 the ocean and came out to Saskatoon where he worked on 

 his uncle's farm for three years. In 1888 he took up a 

 homestead a few miles north of Saskatoon, and in 1897, 

 Queen Victoria's Jubilee Year, removed to his present 

 farm at Rosthern. Mr. Wheeler has thus been associated 

 with western Canada for 33 years. 



Mr. Wheeler began to make selections of cereals and 

 potatoes on his own initiative about the year 1900 but not 

 in a very systematic manner. In 1904, he became an 

 active member of the Canadian Seed Growers' Associa- 

 tion, and then undertook the selection of seed according 

 to definite rules. At the same time, he commenced to 

 study individual plants in small seed-plots and to sow 

 head-rows. At first he made selections from Preston, a 

 wheat still grown on many farms at Rosthern, and then 

 selections from Dr. Saunders' strain of Early Red Fife. 

 He procured a sample of White Bobs for sowing in 1908, 

 and a sample of Marquis for sowing in 1911. 



In 1911 he won his first international prize for the 

 best bushel of hard red spring wheat at the New York 

 Land Show with Marquis; and he won similar prizes 

 with Marquis in 1914 and 1915. In 1916 he also won the 

 international prize but, on this occasion, not with Marquis 

 but with Kitchener, a selection from Marquis. In 1918, 

 for the fifth time, he carried off the international prize, 



