20 BULLETIN 1183, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
wheat from Calcutta, India. The cross was made by Dr. A. P. Saun- 
ders, of the Dominion department of agriculture, about 1892, and 
the plant from which Marquis developed was selected in 1903 by 
Dr. C. E. Saunders, Dominion cerealist, who named the variety. The 
commercial growing of Marquis wheat began in Canada about 1909 
and in the United States about 1913. It soon became the leading 
spring wheat in North America. More than 11 million acres of 
Marquis were grown in the United States in 1919. 
Marquis has produced the highest average yields of any hard red 
spring variety in nearly all areas where this class of wheat is grown. 
Red Fife and Power yield as well as Marquis in northwestern North 
Dakota and northeastern Montana. Kota outyields Marquis in 
North and South Dakota in seasons when rust occurs. Java (Early 
Java) or selections from it have yielded as well as Marquis in central 
Iowa and northern Wisconsin. Red Bobs appears to outyielcl Mar- 
quis in central Montana. With the exceptions mentioned above, 
Marquis is the most productive variety of hard red spring wheat and 
is well adapted to all of the northern spring wheat region. It is not 
resistant to rust. On poor soils it is not especially productive and 
sometimes is too short to be harvested readily. 
When grown under favorable conditions Marquis produces a plump 
kernel that yields a good percentage of flour. Well-developed Mar- 
quis kernels are equal or superior to all other hard red spring wheats 
in yield of flour. Under unfavorable conditions Marquis may have a 
lower test weight per bushel and consequently a lower flour yield 
than some other varieties. In the quality of its flour for bread mak- 
ing Marquis excels all other varieties of hard red spring wheat now 
commercially grown in the United States. The bread produced from 
this wheat has a large expansion and an excellent texture and color. 
The milling and baking data from all samples of Marquis are shown 
in Table 9, and the data from samples comparable with each other 
variety of hard red spring wheat are shown in Tables 11 to 24, inclu- 
sive, in connection with the discussion of these other varieties. 
Norka. — Norka originated from a pure-line selection of a common 
wheat separated from a plat of Kubanka durum in 1908, by W. G. 
Shelley, then a representative of the United States Department of 
Agriculture at Akron, Colo. The name is the reverse spelling of 
Akron. It is an awned, glabrous, brown-glumed wheat with hard, 
bright red kernels. This variety showed considerable promise as a 
high-yielding spring wheat at AkVon and was further tested at experi- 
ment stations in Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota, from 
which nine milling samples were obtained in 1918, 1920, and 1921. 
All samples milled can be directly compared with those of Marquis, 
and the comparison is shown in Table 17. 
The results show that while Norka exceeded Marquis in test weight 
per bushel, crude protein content, and yield of flour and shorts, it 
produced a very low loaf volume, is considerably inferior in color of 
loaf, and is high in ash content. As the experiments proved the 
variety to be of low bread-making value, and as it has given only 
medium yields, it was not distributed commercially and is now dis- 
carded from experiments at most stations. 
