2 BULLETIlSr 400, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 



Investigations, and those at Newell, wS. Dak., in cooperation with the 

 Office of Western Irrigation Agriculture, both of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry. The results at Archer, Wyo., were obtained in cooperation 

 with the State board of farm commissioners. 



The results at St. Paul and Crookston, Minn. ; Langdon and Edge- 

 ley, N. Dak.; Lincoln and North Platte, Nebr. ; and Davis, Cal., 

 were obtained independently by the agricultural experiment stations 

 of those States. The writers desire to acknowledge their indebted- 

 ness to the directors and other officers of these stations and substa- 

 tions for their courtesy in permitting the use of these results. Full 

 credit for these data is given in the text in each case. . 



The data from Huntley, Mont., and the Truckee-Carson Reclama- 

 tion Project in Nevada were furnished by the Office of Western Irriga- 

 tion Agriculture of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



fflSTORY OF MARQUIS WHEAT. 



It is fortimate that in the case of Marquis wheat its origin is fairly 

 well known and the main facts of its subsequent liistory can be traced. 



The Marquis variety is a hybrid wheat bred by the cerealists of 

 the Dommion Department of Agriculture, at Ottawa, Canada. The 

 present Dominion cereahst has given an account of its origin m the 

 following words : ^ 



ORIGIN. 



A few details in regard to the origin and characteristics of Marquis wheat were 

 given in the report of the Experimental Farms for the year 1906. It seems neces- 

 sary, now, to treat this subject at somewhat greater length, in \iew of the excep- 

 tional interest which has lately been aroused in this wheat. 



Among the crosses made by the director of experimental farms and his assistants 

 during the first few years after the farms were established, several were effected 

 between Red Fife and various early-matming wheats from Europe and Asia. AU 

 the details in regard to the origin of Marquis are not available, but it is one of the 

 descendants of a cross between an early-ripening Indian whe.at, Hard Red Calcutta 

 (as female) and Red Fife (as male). The cross (as appears from unpublished notes) 

 was made by Dr. A. P. Saunders, probably at the experimental farm at Agassiz, in 

 the year 1892. The crossbred seeds, or their progeny, were transferred to Ottawa 

 and when the writer of this report was appointed in 1903 to take charge of the work of 

 cereal breeding, he made a series of selections from the progeny of all the crossbred 

 wheats which had been produced at Ottawa up to that time. Some of these had 

 been named and others were under numbers. Though they had all been subjected 

 to a certain amount of selection, each of them consisted of a mixtm'e of related tj^oes. 

 In some cases all the types present were similar. 4n other instances striking differ- 

 ences were observed. The grain which had descended from the cross referred to 

 above was found by careful study of individual plants (especially by applying the 

 chewing test to ascertain the gluten strength and probable bread-making value) to 

 be a mixture of similar-looking varieties which differed radically in regard to gluten 

 quality. One of the varieties isolated from this mixture was subsequently named 



1 Saunders, C. E. Marquis wheat. In Canada Exp. Farms Rpts. [1911-1912], p. 118-120. 1912. 



