DISCOVERY OF MARQUIS WHEAT 187 



and Prelude have therefore had a somewhat complex 

 origin. However, each of them, in a greater or lesser de- 

 gree, embodies the earliness of its Indian or Eussian an- 

 cestors with the good milling and baking qualities of 

 Canadian Eed Fife or White Fife. The production of 

 such cross-bred wheats to meet the requirements of agri- 

 culture is one of the most remarkable developments of 

 modern botany. 



XVI. The Advance Toward the North of the Belts of 

 Wheat and Com 



The pushing up of the wheat-belt in Canada toward 

 the North, owing to the discovery and introduction of 

 new early-maturing varieties, finds an interesting parallel 

 in the northerly advance of the belt of Indian com in the 

 United States. The original corn-belt was situated in 

 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska; but now 

 corn culture is undertaken on a considerable scale in Min- 

 nesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The northerly 

 extension of the corn-belt by several hundreds of miles 

 was accomplished by the introduction of new varieties of 

 corn with early-ripening characteristics, two of the chief 

 ones being known as Minnesota No. IS and Minnesota 

 No. 23. The former is a uniform Yellow Dent, and the 

 latter a white-capped Yellow Dent. Minnesota No. 13 

 was discovered by Professor Andrew Boss of the Uni- 

 versity of Minnesota. Professor Boss in 1890 obtained 

 two bushels of Yellow Dent from De Cow and Company, 

 seedsmen of St. Paul, planted the grains at the University 



inated in 1841 from a sample of wheat which was obtained by a friend 

 from a cargo of wheat which had arrived at the port of Glasgow 

 from Danzig on the Baltic coast. Dr. C. E. Saunders has shown 

 that it is identical with a wheat still grown in Galicia. Vide 

 Section XXIII on The Origin of Red Fife. 



