Evolution Going On 191 



with excellent milling and baking qualities. It is now the domi- 

 nant spring wheat in Canada and the United States, and it has 

 enormously increased the real wealth of the world in the last ten 

 years ( 1921 ) . Now our point is simply that this Marquis Wheat 

 is a fine example of evolution going on. In 1917 upwards of 

 250,000,000 bushels of this wheat were raised in North America, 

 and in 1918 upwards of 300,000,000 bushels; yet the whole origin- 

 ated from a single grain planted in an experimental plot at 

 Ottawa by Dr. Charles E. Saunders so recently as the spring of 

 1903. 



We must not dwell too long on this particular instance of 

 evolution, though it has meant much to our race. We wish, haw- 

 ever, following Professor Buller's Essays on Wheat (1919), to 

 explain the method by which this good seed was discovered. 

 From one we may learn all. The parent of Marquis Wheat on 

 the male side was the mid-Europe Red Fife a first-class cereal. 

 The parent on the female side was less promising, a rather non- 

 descript, not pure-bred wheat, called Red Calcutta, which was 

 imported from India into Canada about thirty years ago. The 

 father was part of a cargo that came from the Baltic to Glasgow, 

 and was happily included in a sample sent on to David Fife in 

 Ontario about 1842. From one kernel of this sample David Fife 

 started his stock of Red Fife, which was crossed by Dr. Saunders 

 with Hard Red Calcutta. The result of the cross was a medley 

 of types, nearly a hundred varieties altogether, and it was in 

 scrutinising these that Dr. Saunders hit upon Marquis. He 

 worked steadily through the material, studying head after head 

 of what resulted from sowing, and selecting out those that gave 

 most promise. Each of the heads selected was propagated ; most 

 of the results were rejected; the elect were sifted again and yet 

 again, and finally Marquis Wheat emerged, rich in constructive 

 possibilities, probably the most valuable food-plant in the world. 

 It is like a romance to read that "the first crop of the wheat that 

 was destined within a dozen years to overtax the mightiest eleva- 



