70 BULLETIN- 1074, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OE 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 superior 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 soils and dry 
climates. A superior white 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 {52). 
The seed w^as 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 white, short to 
midlong, hard, ovate ; germ midsized ; crease midwide, middeep ; cheeks angular ; 
brush midsized, midlong. A spike of tliis wheat is shown in Plate IV, Figure 2. 
History. — ^White Fife is thought to be a white-kerneled separation from the 
well-kno\^Ti Red Fife wheat of Canada, although its exact origin is undeter- 
mined.. It was grown by the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station in 1879 
from seed obtained from Minnesota (//6, 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. 
