152 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



the female parent when the cross was made. The result 

 of the cross, in a few generations, was a mixture of types 

 including Marquis. Marquis, therefore, remained mixed 

 with other sorts of wheat until it was discovered in 1904 

 by Dr. Saunders, in the course of his systematic work of 

 re-selection of all the mixed wheats which previously had 

 been produced by cross-breeding at Ottawa.'^^ 



The work of re-selecting the cross-bred varieties of 

 wheat which resulted in the discovery of Marquis was no 

 mean task ; for, altogether, there were nearly one hundred 

 of these varieties, and each variety (whether recorded un- 

 der a name or under a number J contained several strains. 

 The strains within a single variety often presented radical 



11 Gf. C. E. Saunders, Report of the Dominion Cerealist for the 

 year 1911-1912 in the Annual Eeport on Experimental Farms, 

 Ottawa, 1913, pp. 118-119; also, by the same author: Marquis 

 Wheat, Census and Statistics Monthly, Ottawa, 1911, p. 332. Dr. 

 Saunders once wrote a brief article on Marquis for the Saskatche- 

 wan Phoenix; but this I have not seen. 



Dr. Saunders, in reference to the cross from which Marquis 

 originated, says : " The cross was made on one of the branch 

 experimental farms and the cross-bred seeds, or their progeny, were 

 subsequently transferred to Ottawa. Here some selection was done, 

 but the work was not carried far enough to separate out simple 

 fixed types. It was therefore a mixture, lacking in uniformity, which 

 came into the possession of the writer when he took charge of the 

 Cereal Division. By a careful study of individual plants selected 

 from the plot, and especially by applying the chewing test to 

 ascertain the gluten strength and probable bread-making value, 

 radical differences in quality were found, and a few of the most 

 promising plants were used as a foundation of the new strains. 

 These strains were propagated (each separately) for some years 

 until they had been sufficiently studied to ascertain which was the 

 best. The best strain was named Marquis." Cereal Breeding in 

 the Dominion Experimental Farms during the Past Decade, Transac- 

 tions of the Eoyal Society of Canada, Third Series, Vol. VII, Section 

 IV, 1913, p. 152. The branch farms which Dr. A. P. Saunders 

 visited in 1892 were Brandon, Indian Head, and Agassiz. It is 

 not certain at which of these farms the cross was made, but Dr. 

 Charles Saunders thinks it was probably Agassiz. 



