26 



Wheat Breeding in Canada. 



yield per acre of winter wheat is usually large, and the kernels 

 are exceptionally heavy and hard. 



VI. British Columbia. — This Province does not produce very 

 much wheat, though it is found profitable where grown. Both 

 winter and spring varieties are sown. The diversity of climates 

 in this Province is so great as to render impossible any general 

 descriptive remarks on the subject. 



From the details just given it will be readily seen that the 

 position of winter wheat in Canada is distinctly subordinate to 

 that of spring wheat. In order therefore to bring the subject 

 within reasonable limits all discussion of the work which has been 

 done in this country with winter wheat is omitted. 



Most of the breeding and selecting of varieties of wheat in 

 connection with the Dominion Experimental Farm system has 

 been carried on at the Central Farm at Ottawa, where the climate 

 in many respects resembles that of most of the spring wheat 

 districts of Canada. The selections made at the Ottawa Farm 

 are only provisional ; the most promising varieties are afterwards 

 sent to the various branch farms for further trial and for the 

 rejection of any found unsuited to the local conditions. 



When the Dominion Experimental Farms were first established 

 the settlement of the great prairie country of Central and Western 

 Canada had not progressed very far, so that there were various 

 problems of vital importance connected with the growing of wheat 

 on the plains which awaited investigation. While, therefore, the 

 needs of the older farming districts have not been overlooked, 

 the most interesting branches of the work have been those con- 

 cerning the great wheat-growing plains. The short summer of 

 the prairies emphasised the need for early-maturing varieties of 

 wheat, while the long distance between the farmer and the main 

 centres of wheat consumption made it essential that only such 

 varieties .should be grown as would command an exceptionally 

 high price in the world's markets, so that the cost of transporting 

 the grain would be relatively low. 



The prairie settlers found the famous Red Fife wheat very 

 satisfactory on the whole, except in regard to the time taken to 

 mature the crop, which in the less favourable seasons was rather 

 too long ; so that the fields were sometimes touched with frost 

 before the grain was ready to be cut, thus very seriously lessening 

 the farmers' income. In hardness of kernel and in flour strength 

 (the characteristics which perhaps chiefly determine the selling 

 price of any wheat) this variety ranks at the head of its class. 

 What was needed, therefore, for the great wheat-growing plains 

 was an early Red Fife : a variety having all the good qualities 

 of ordinary Red Fife with the added excellence of earliness. 



To meet, 'this need, early-ripening varieties of wheat were 



