70 BULLETIN 1074, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
to midlong, hard, oval; germ midsized ; crease midwide, middeep to deep; cheeks | 
rounded; brush midsized, midlong. 
Quality is a spring wheat and is not winter hardy when fall sown. It also’ | 
shatters very badly in dry climates. 
History— Quality wheat was first distributed by Luther Burbank, of Santa 
Rosa, Calif., in 1918. In his catalogue of *‘ New Standard Grains” (52) in 1918, 
Mr. Burbank’s first published statement concerning Quality wheat is as follows: 
This season I offer a super.or early hard white wheat suited to all climates | 
wherever wheat can be grown; aS a summer wheat in the cold far. northern | 
climates and as a winter crop in the United States and most wheat-growing © 
countries. It is especially adapted also to short seasons and so.ls and dry 
climates. A superior wh.te milling wheat which makes the best light, sweet, 
nutritious bread and pastry. . . . This early, hardy “Quality” wheat 
which I offer this season will not yield as much as some of the coarse macaroni — 
wheats in some warm, dry sections, but for general culture, with its unusual | 
hardiness and extreme earliness, uniformity, superior milling and bread- | 
making qualities, it stands alone. It most resembles in all these respects the — 
hard northern wheat “ Prize Marquis,” but has a vitreous white berry of 
quite different appearance and quality and of about the same specific gravity — 
as granite (92). ~ aa 
The seed was originally sold at $5 per pound, or $45 for 10 pounds, i. e., at 
the rate of $270 a bushel. Concerning these extravagant claims and prices, | 
Buller (50, p. 235) has made the following comment: 
But Mr. Burbank is only just beginning his work as an introducer of new | 
wheats, and the writer can not help feeling that in penning his advertisement of 
Quality he allowed his enthusiasm for his new cereal to be mixed a little too 
freely with his ink. . . . When Mr. Burbank tells us that Quality ¢ 
has kernels with about the same specific gravity as granite, surely he is ad- 
dressing us in the language of hyperbole. 
Distribution.Grown experimentally and to a small extent commercially in 
California, Montana, and Oklahoma, in 1920. 
WHITE FIFE. 
Description.—Plant spring habit, midseason, midtall; stem white, midstrong; 
spike awnless, fusiform, middense, erect; glumes glabrous, white to yellowish, 
short, midwide, shoulders midwide, oblique to square; beaks midwide, acute, 0.5 | 
to 1.0 mm, long; apical awns few, 5 to 15 mm. long; kernels whte, short to | 
midlong, hard, ovate; germ midsized; crease midwide, middeep; cheeks angular; — 
brush midsized, midlong. <A spike of this wheat is shown in Plate IV, Figure 2. 
History.—White Fife is thought to be a white-kerneled separation from the 
well-known Red Fife wheat of Canada, although its exact orig’n is undeter- 
mined. It was grown by the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station in 1879 | 
from seed obtained from Minnesota (46, p. 40). It was first grown in the | 
varietal experiments at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, Experimental Farm in 
1889, where it was continued in the experiments until 1911. During this 23-year | 
period it outyielded Red Fife by nearly 1.5 bushels per acre. The variety was 
used by Dr. A. P. Saunders as one of the parents of crosses from which origi- | 
nated the varieties Huron, Percy, and Prelude. The White Fife variety was 
used also by Prof. A. E. Blount as a parent stock for several of his hybrids made 
at the Colorado Agricultural College about 1888. 
Distribution—Grown sparingly in Polk County, Minn., Sheridan County, | 
Nebr., and Richland County, N. Dak. It was reported in 1904 to have been | 
grown to a considerable extent in some parts of Manitoba and the Northwest 
Territories, 
