DISCOVERY OF MARQUIS WHEAT 23Y 



the Prairie Provinces of Canada or in the north-central 

 spring-wheat region of the United States. 



XXVIII. Biographical Sketch of the Discoverer of 

 Mwrquis 



Dr. Charles E. Saunders, the discoverer of Marquis 

 wheat, was born at London, Ontario, in the year 1867 ; and 

 he is therefore a Canadian by birth. He received his early 

 education at the London Collegiate Institute, and from 

 there proceeded to the University of Toronto, where he 

 graduated as a Bachelor of Arts, with Honors in Science, 

 in 1888. He then studied for three further years at the 

 Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, where he earned 

 his doctorate by taking the degree of Ph.D. in 1891. This 

 record shows that Dr. Saunders received a first-class scien- 

 tific education. In 1892, Dr. Saunders married Miss 

 Mary Blackwell of Deer Park, Ontario. From 1892 to 

 1893 he was a Professor at the Central University in Ken- 

 tucky. In addition to his attraction toward science, Dr. 

 Saunders had, and still has, a great love of music ; and he 

 became a masterly player on the fiute and took a keen 

 pleasure in song. There was danger that music and not 

 science would claim him for his life's work. For some 

 years he devoted his entire attention to voice culture and 

 to this end studied both in New York and in London, Eng- 

 land. He became musical instructor at Havergal College, 

 Toronto, and then at the St. Margaret's Ladies College in 

 the same city. Subsequently he led the choir at the Do- 

 minion Methodist Church at Ottawa; and it was during 

 this period that he assisted his father in the work of im- 

 proving wheats. This return to applied science resulted 

 in Dr. Saunders being appointed Dominion Cerealist in 

 1903. 



