DISCOVERY OF MARQUIS WHEAT 155 



danger is there of its being injured or destroyed by Eust or 

 early frosts. But another good quality made its appear- 

 ance as the study of the annual harvests continued, namely, 

 yield. Marquis was found to give an excellent yield, this 

 being in part due to the marked plumpness of the grains. 

 Evidently, therefore, the new wheat behaved well in the 

 field. But besides good field qualities, it is necessary for 

 a successful wheat to have good baking and milling quali- 

 ties. It was essential, therefore, to investigate these lat- 

 ter also. In the winter of 1903-04, Dr. Saunders did 

 not possess a well-equipped laboratory and had at his 

 disposal neither • a mill to grind wheat into flour nor 

 an oven to bake bread. But, at that time, even if mills 

 and ovens had been available, it would have been im- 

 possible to use them for testing the milling and baking 

 qualities of Marquis, owing to the fact that the number 

 of grains with which the tests might be made was limited 

 to the few that could be spared from the single head of 

 wheat selected in 1903 for seed purposes. The clew to the 

 milling and baking qualities of Marquis was therefore ob- 

 tained by chewing the grains. It was found that on 

 taking a few grains of the Marquis wheat and chewing 

 them as if one were chewing chewing-gum, an elastic mass 

 was obtained which was of good color, i. e., not too yellow 

 but pale cream or whitish. The color is of importance, 

 for the lighter it is, the lighter, and therefore more at- 

 tractive-looking, will be the flour produced from the wheat 

 in a mill. The light color of the elastic mass, when taken 

 from the mouth, was therefore all in favor of the Marquis 

 wheat so far as the miller is concerned. The elasticity 

 of the mass gave an indication of the way the wheat would 

 behave as to baking qualities. The elasticity of the mass 

 produced by chewing a few grains of wheat of different 

 varieties varies greatly; but, as a rule, the more elastic 



