766 DISCUSSION ON WHEAT: 
What was needed, therefore, for the great wheat-growing plains was an 
early Red Fife: a variety having all the good qualities of ordinary Red 
Fife with the added excellence of earliness. 
To meet this need, early-ripening varieties of wheat were imported from 
various countries by the Director of the Experimental Farms, and at as 
early a date as possible experiments in cross-breeding were begun for the 
purpose of combining in one sort all the desired qualities. Naturally, Red 
Fife was used as one of the parents in the majority of the crosses which 
were effected, as this wheat perhaps possesses more good points than any 
other well-known kind from a commercial point of view. 
None of the early wheats imported from other countries proved satis- 
factory for our conditions, although some of them have been found of great 
value in cross-breeding. The new and improved varieties which have been 
or are being given to the public have therefore been produced either by 
cross-breeding (followed by selection) or by the mere selection of superior 
strains from existing sorts. Both of these lines of work have given valuable 
results, though selection alone has been found to be limited in its practical 
possibilities. 
The work of cross-breeding was begun by Dr. William Saunders (the 
Director of the Experimental Farms) and his assistants in the year 1888. 
The principal crosses which were made at that time were between Red Fife 
wheat (or White Fife, an almost identical sort) and an early-ripening 
variety which had been obtained from Russia. Some years later other 
crosses were effected, but the main interest has centred in the progeny of 
the first crosses, especially those known as Stanley, Preston and Huron, 
which are now widely distributed throughout the western provinces and 
which have contributed largely to successful wheat-growing in many of the 
less-favoured localities during the past few years. 
In the earlier years the system of selection after crossing was not so 
thorough as that now known to be necessary. The cross-bred varieties first 
introduced were therefore not quite fixed in some essential respects; and it 
devolved on the writer of this Paper, who was appointed in the year 1903 
to take charge of the work with cereals, to re-select all the varieties of 
wheat obtained from the crosses effected up to that time. By this re- 
selection, on Mendelian lines, of course the early cross-bred wheats have 
been distinctly improved ; the best of the new, selected strains combine to 
a very large extent the good qualities of both parents. Stanley, Preston 
and Huron, as now grown at the experimental farms, are vigorous, early 
sorts, ripening a few days—or sometimes nearly two weeks—before Red Fife, 
and having hard, bright kernels of the popular reddish-brown shade. In 
yield of grain per acre they often surpass Red Fife, even when the con- 
ditions are favourable to the latter sort, and in yield of flour in the mill 
they are quite satisfactory. From a commercial point of view they are all 
somewhat inferior to Red Fife, for while they produce flour of good quality 
it does not usually possess the remarkable baking strength which generally 
characterises Red Fife flour. Preston and Huron have a further but not 
very serious disadvantage of yielding flour of a deeper yellowish colour 
than that made from Red Fife. Stanley gives flour of the same shade as 
Red Fife. 
In addition to the three new varieties just mentioned, which inherited 
their early-maturing qualities from a wheat from Northern Russia, refer- 
ence should be made to three other cross-bred sorts, Marquis, Chelsea and 
Bishop, which owe their earliness largely to the fact that one of the parents 
in each case was a very early wheat obtained from India. Marquis and 
Chelsea are descended in part from Red Fife. Bishop is an Indo-Russian 
cross. Of these newer varieties Marquis is perhaps the most important, 
showing distinct superiority over the cross-bred varieties first introduced 
