136 BREEDING CROP PLANTS 



Among other varieties produced by crossing which are of 

 economic importance may be mentioned Comback, Cedar, 

 Firbank, Bobs, Florence and Cleveland. 



Farrer's method of breeding seems to have been based on 

 inducing maximum variation through composite crossing and then 

 subjecting the progeny to selection. He was a keen observer and 

 possessed ability to pick out forms which proved of economic 

 value. This emphasizes the need of a knowledge of the charac- 

 ters of a crop with which the breeder is to work, which is as 

 essential as a knowledge of laws of breeding. 



FIG. 27. A section of the winter wheat plant breeding nursery in the spring 

 of 1918. The three rows at the right are Minhardi, a very winter-hardy wheat 

 produced from a cross of Odessa with Turkey. In right center are three rows of 

 Turkey, Minn. 1487. 



Marquis Wheat. If the spring wheat known as Marquis 

 (Saunders, 1912) were the only one of economic importance which 

 had been produced by artificial crossing, the practice would be 

 justified. The early history of this wheat is somewhat obscure. 

 It is one of the descendants of a cross between an early ripening 

 wheat from India, Hard Red Calcutta 9 and Red Fife cf . The 

 cross was made by A. P. Saunders, probably at the experimental 

 farm at Agassiz, Canada, in 1892. The crossed seed or its 

 progeny was transferred to the Ottawa Experimental Farm. 

 In 1903 Chas. E. Saunders took charge of the cereal breeding at 

 this place and immediately initiated a series of selections from the 



