U. S. DEPAETMEXT OF AGRICULTURE, 
Investigations, and those at Newell, S. Dak., in cooperation with the 
Office of Western Irrigation Agriculture, both of the Bureau of Plant 
Industry. The results at Archer, W3-0., were obtained in cooperation 
with the State board of farm commissioners. 
The results at St. Paul and Crookston, Minn. ; Langdon and Edge- 
ley, N. Dak.; Lincoln and North Platte, Nebr.; and Davis, CaL, 
were obtained independently by the agricultural experiment stations 
of those States. The writers desire to acknowledge their indebted- 
ness to the directors and other officers of these stations and substa- 
tions for their courtesy in permitting the use of these results. Full 
credit for these data is given in the text in each case. 
The data from Huntley, Mont., and the Truckee-Carson Reclama- 
tion Project in Nevada were furnished by the Office of Western Irriga- 
tion Agriculture of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 
HISTORY OF MARQUIS WHEAT. 
It is fortunate that in the case of Marquis wheat its origin is fairly 
well known and the main facts of its subsequent history can be traced. 
The Marquis variety is a hybrid wheat bred by the cerealists of 
the Dominion Department of Agriculture, at Ottawa, Canada. The 
present Dominion cerealist has given an account of its origin in the 
following words : x 
ORIGIN. 
A few details in regard to the origin and characteristics of Marquis wheat were 
given in the report of the Experimental Farms for the year 1906. It seems neces- 
sary, now, to treat this subject at somewhat greater length, in view of the excep- 
tional interest which has lately been aroused in this wheat. 
Among the crosses made by the director of experimental farms and his assistants 
during the first few years after the farms were established, several were effected 
between Red Fife and various early-maturing wheats from Europe and Asia. All 
the details in regard to the origin of Marquis are not available, but it is one of the 
descendants of a cross between an early-ripening Indian wheat, Hard Red Calcutta 
(as female) and Red Fife (as male). The cross (as appears from unpublished notes) 
was made by Dr. A. P. Saunders, probably at the experimental farm at Agassiz, in 
the year 1892. The crossbred seeds, or their progeny, were transferred to Ottawa 
and when the writer of this report was appointed in 1903 to take charge of the work of 
cereal breeding, he made a series of selections from the progeny of all the crossbred 
wheats which had been produced at Ottawa up to that time. Some of these had 
been named and others were under numbers. Though they had all been subjected 
to a certain amount of selection, each of them consisted of a mixture of related types. 
In some cases all the types present were similar. In other instances striking differ- 
ences were observed. The grain which had descended from the cross referred to 
above was found by careful study of individual plants (especially by applying the 
chewing test to ascertain the gluten strength and probable bread-making value) to 
be a mixture of similar-looking varieties which differed radically in regard to gluten 
quality. One of the varieties isolated from this mixture was subsequently named 
1 Saunders, C. E. Marquis wheat. In Canada Exp. Farms Rpts. [1911-1912], p. 11S-120. 1912. 
