From a single seed, Tracing the Marquis wheat success story in Canada

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class="content"> <h3 class="center"><i>From a single seed</i> <br> <b>Tracing the Marquis wheat success story in Canada<br> </b><b>to its roots in the Ukraine</b> </h3> <p><a name="contents"></a>(continuation)</p> <ul> <li> <a href="#press_reports">Press Reports and Other Writings on Halychanka (Red Fife) Wheat</a> <ul> <li><a href="#daily"><i>The Manitoba Daily Free Press</i>, 1883</a> </li> <li><a href="#government_circular1883">The Government Circular on Red Fife Wheat, 1883</a> </li> <li><a href="#yukon1920">"Harvesting Wheat in the Yukon" 1920</a></li> <li><a href="#salute">"Salute to Canada's Great Pioneer,"1933</a> </li> <li><i><a href="#country_gentleman">The Country Gentleman and Cultivator</a></i><a href="#country_gentleman">, 1926</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#halychanka_literature">Halychanka (Red Fife) Wheat in the Professional Literature</a> </li> </ul> <h3><a name="press_reports"></a>Press Reports and Other Writings <br> on Halychanka (Red Fife) Wheat</h3> <p><b><em><a name="daily"></a>The Manitoba Daily Free Press</em>, 1883</b></p> <p>"Messrs. Traill, Maulson, and Clark have obtained four loads of Red Fife seed, a total of 2,000 bushels, in connection with their undertaking to introduce this most important variety to farmers in the province. They have prepared to import 10,000 bushels and are prepared to increase the quantity, if the orders appear. To date, orders have been received for six freight cars and numerous additional orders have begun to arrive. Even if there were no more than 10,000 bushels ordered by the farmers this year, it has been established that, allowing for two bushels of seed per acre and a harvested yield of 20 bushels per acre, this amount would represent 100,000 bushels, or about all that would be used for the following year. The product of this second sowing will no doubt get to the general market and enhance the reputation of Manitoba as a major grain producer."</p> <p>"In undertaking to introduce the necessary delivery to the country of this type of wheat, Messrs. Traill, Maulson, and Clark were guided by the following principle: they did not see why Manitoba, possessing the best-quality soils, should not grow the best-quality wheat. It would be in the interest of the farmers and the millers, and of the province as a whole, if this was done. They consider Red Fife wheat to be the best in every respect; that is, appropriate for this climate. This is very clearly illustrated in the case of some Mennonite settlers whose 'White Russian' wheat was found to be of very poor quality, with a yield of no more than 10 bushels per acre. At the same time, farms in this same settlement where Red Fife wheat had been sown are producing from 20 to 25 bushels per acre of excellent grain."</p> <p>"Our experience over the past year has shown that Red Fife wheat adapts better than soft varieties such as Club, Golden Drop, or White Russian which grow in the climatic conditions of this country. It was tested during the past summer, on account of the sudden and stormy weather changes from long-lasting drought to heavy rains and then intense heat."</p> <p>"Another advantage of Red Fife wheat, according to Mr. Clark, is that it is free from attacks by loose smut. Observations from last year showed that where loose smut was found on fields where the Red Fife variety was growing, in every case it belonged to the soft varieties -- soft wheat grains that had been mixed into the former variety. Red Fife is in demand among millers on account of its adaptability to the new system of milling by grinding between rollers and also on account of the fineness of the bran and the amount of gluten in the grain. It is expected that the cultivation of this wheat in more northerly zones will have an effect on the further development of its excellent qualities. This account is said to confirm past experience."</p> <p>"It is believed that Red Fife wheat originates from a shipment of Hirka wheat from southern Ukraine which was sent to Scotland and then forwarded by a friend to the renowned Mr. Fife, who lived near Coburg, Ontario. As the grain was improved through cultivation in Ontario and through a gradual move into more northerly latitudes, it was believed that further improvements would continue on to the furthest possible northern reaches of wheat cultivation. It is expected that next year's harvest will surpass the quality of seed imported to date and that its quality is good."</p> <p>"The first pure Red Fife seed imported by farmers and sown to replace the present grain was bought at a high price, which will also be obtained from the harvest produced this year."</p> <p>"MILLERS PAY UP TO TEN CENTS MORE PER BUSHEL FOR THIS WHEAT. But the farmers who grow it will receive an even better price for the first few years as they sell their surplus to their neighbours and to the new settlers coming in. Another benefit from this is that by the general introduction of the best wheat, the quality of grain throughout the province will expand in a northwesterly direction. With the best soils and other advantages, it is necessary to sow first-class seed in order to place Manitoba among the first rank of wheat producers. On the other hand it is not easy to evaluate the unfortunate consequences which may arise for the entire country from the cultivation of low-quality grain so early in our history. The area under cultivation this spring gives rise to the belief that the next harvest will produce a great surplus of grain over and above the milling needs of the country: thus the task of replacing the best grain must proceed without delay so that the quality of the grain for export is not diminished."</p> <p>"The Dominion Government is encouraging the introduction of Red Fife for the entire sowing season by authorizing its importation duty-free. The CPR also supports this idea by shipping seed grain of this variety without payment for transport. In spite of all these incentives, many farmers will not be able to buy sufficient seed of this variety to sow all of their plowed land; but one may expect that a large number will be able to get enough of this grain so that by next year they will sow only Red Fife. On the other hand many farmers will undoubtedly grow much more than they will need for themselves and sell the surplus for seed."</p> <p>"Messrs. Traill, Maulson, and Clark have taken special precautions to import only perfectly pure grain. Mr. Clark returned one evening from Minnesota where he had made arrangements for the export, cleaning, and loading of the grain into new sacks with a capacity of two bushels. On returning he appointed one of his clerks there to look after this order."</p> <p>"The Department of Agriculture has issued special directives on this matter and Mr. Acton Beavers, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Statistics, has worked energetically to discharge this responsibility. Most recently he has issued the following announcement."(36)</p> <h4><a name="government_circular1883"></a>The Government Circular on Red Fife Wheat, 1883</h4> <p>From the Department of Agriculture:</p> <p>As it has been proved beyond any question that Red Fife wheat is in every respect the most lucrative variety for cultivation in Manitoba and that great losses have been borne by farmers who have sown soft wheat varieties, the Department of Agriculture has taken measures to provide assistance for the delivery of Red Fife for seeding purposes. Because there is not a sufficient amount of pure seed in the province to fulfill the needs, an application has been made to the Minister of Customs to permit pure Red Fife grain to be imported for seeding purposes without payment of duties.</p> <p>An application was placed with Messrs. Traill, Maulson, and Clark, grain merchants in Winnipeg, who had arranged to bring out a large transport of selected Red Fife from Minnesota, to thoroughly clean and supply 500-bushel cartloads at a price of $1.30 per bushel. It will be delivered to every CPR station, packed in two-bushel lots in cotton sacks at 27 cents each. Messrs. Brown, Oldfield, and Co. and Mr. R. R. Kite and Co., seed merchants from Winnipeg, have also organized delivery of this wheat. It will be on sale either in whole cartloads or in smaller amounts, depending on demand. The prices for orders may be obtained from them.</p> <p>It has been proposed that various electoral agricultural branches and societies in the province participate in the distribution of the pure grain, permitting their secretary-treasurers to take orders from persons in their own districts so that cartloads may be obtained and the payment of high prices avoided when smaller amounts are ordered. Messrs. Traill, Maulson, and Clark are selling for cash. A full cartload order requires a cash deposit of $250 with the difference payable on loading, even before the grain is reloaded from the station to which it is to be sent. The orders are to be sent directly to one of the three firms mentioned above, as early as possible and not later than the end of March because the orders may exhaust the entire supply.</p> <p>The news account above is very significant because it presents the general consensus of the time on the question of the sowing of wheat in Manitoba and is a testimonial on the perceived value of Halychanka (Red Fife) wheat. It also illustrates the support for and the understanding of the remarkable value of this variety within the Department of Agriculture.</p> <p>Of course, this wheat had already come to Canada more that four decades earlier, in 1842, but it had not been recognized and taken advantage of at the time. Such accidental events can sometimes establish prosperity and create a flourishing economy for a society or an entire country. If an American farmer had not received a small amount of this wheat from David Fife, sowed it, made money with it and revealed its extraordinary value to the press, the Halychanka (Red Fife) wheat might well have been lost to this whole continent. Truly, the development of this wheat in North America owes him a great deal. What a strange, roundabout journey for a small Ukranian grain of wheat! From Ukraine to Ontario, from Ontario to the United States, then to Manitoba, and back to Ontario, and then throughout Canada.</p> <h4><a name="yukon1920"></a>"Harvesting Wheat in the Yukon" 1920</h4> <p>Under this heading, an early Department of Agriculture report ends with: "In 1920, experimental fields of Marquis wheat produced up to 50 bushels, while the next year wheat of the Ruby variety produced 54 bushels per acre. The very dry weather in 1922, however, allowed the Prelude variety to produce only 24.5 bushels per acre." (37, p.158) So Red Fife descendants could thrive as far north as the Yukon.</p> <p>Let us go back to the situation in 1884. When Red Fife returned to Canada after 41 years, this nation needed to rebuild its agriculture. Canada's agricultural economy could grow only if it was built on a strong foundation. It was meant to be the country's most important industry but it was also a way of life. The Dominion government had indeed expended enormous efforts and resources in organizing the Experimental Farms: but the first pillar of success in the development of Canada's agriculture was none other than Halychanka (Red Fife), the superb Ukrainian wheat which had come to Canada by sheer happenstance. And its subsequent success speaks for itself.</p> <h4><a name="salute"></a>"Salute to Canada's Great Pioneer," 1933</h4> <p>In the August 1933 issue of <em>The Canadian Magazine</em>, R. S. Kennedy wrote: "Then Red Fife arrived, a wheat variety that not only strengthened the foundations of the old Canada and built the new province of Manitoba but also was one of the ancestral parents of all of the most important new varieties that have been formed through crossings and that made the New Canada an actual fact and not some dubious experiment."</p> <p>"Red Fife is a true Canadian-born child, although like all of us except the Indians, its ancestor was an immigrant. It matured, displayed all the distinguished qualities expected of it, and from it sprang all of those thousands of millions of bushels of Red Fife, which, first in Ontario and then in Manitoba, parts of Saskatchewan, and Alberta, were exported to promote Canada and establish its unrivalled reputation for wheat quality."</p> <p>"If city dwellers think they are hearing and reading too much about wheat, they are wrong. Wheat is the basis of the commercial success of Canada. Agricultural products are now and should always remain its main export, and although wheat is without reservation the only agricultural product with which we can compete on world markets, it is one which came first and has stayed on, one which opened and is still opening new lands to settlers, and which, in a world of changing conditions has diversified our agriculture and caused villages and, later, towns to spring into existence. Ontario has completed this process, Manitoba is half done, while Alberta and Saskatchewan are just beginning. But they owe it all to this wheat, which has helped them through a gentle labour and an easy birth at the greatest possible speed."</p> <h4><em><a name="country_gentleman"></a>The Country Gentleman and Cultivator</em>, 1926</h4> <p>The author focuses on Red Fife's most famous child: "Some people say that Marquis, the best known of American wheats, the king of the northwestern Prairies, is the ordinary result of a series of good luck and happenstance. Others, and there are more of these, think that it was Dr. C. Saunders who discovered Marquis wheat through his detailed research into the breeding of wheat plants. The nation of Canada has in fact rewarded Dr. C. Saunders with an annual pension of $5,000. But the true history of how this early-maturing, high-yield wheat arrived to bless the settlers in the Northwest has more than one hero."</p> <p>He begins with William Saunders: "In 1886, a Commission of the Parliament of Canada brought in pharmacist, W. Saunders, to establish the Experimental Farms. He had the vision that things could grow in the black soil in the short hazardous summer of the Canadian Northwest. He tried everything from roses to turnips, from hardwoods to unknown wheats from the Himalayan mountains. The early-maturing Marquis wheat emerged from this ... research." He also notes Saunders's talent for selecting assistants: Thomas Sharp, William Macoun, and Angus Mackay.</p> <p>"[By 1903] old W. Saunders was approaching seventy. He was still working hard, slowly, incessantly, a machine-like type of worker. And his weighty experiments grew: 41, then 65, followed by 72, and now 119 varieties of wheat he investigated year after year in Ottawa. There were too many varieties there, so he hired his son, Dr. Charles Saunders, to bring some order into these new wheats. It seems strange to present Charles as a hunter of wheat...lean, tall, not very healthy, he cared most about music. He had a doctorate in chemistry, yet for several years he had studied singing in New York and London."</p> <p>"An unlikely hunter of wheat? And yet, if old William had not set his son to work, perhaps Marquis wheat would never have been discovered. For it was among these excellent wheats that Charles found Marquis from among the five offspring of Red Fife and Hard Red Calcutta created from a selection made in Agassiz at the farm of Thomas Sharp in 1892." (41, p. 12)</p> <p class="right"><a href="#contents"><img src="/web/20051104080107im_/http://res2.agr.ca/images/top.gif" alt="Contents" hspace="0" width="14" height="10" border="0"></a></p><br> <h3><a name="halychanka_literature"></a>Halychanka (Red Fife) Wheat in the Professional Literature</h3> <p>There is quite a number of articles and publications that address the origin of Halychanka (Red Fife) wheat in Canada. (38, 3 items) Charles Saunders wrote an important one in 1905 (39), which, although not well known, makes an important contribution to the history of Canadian wheat; but let me begin with one he wrote in 1911 in a French scientific publication:</p> <p>"I would like to say a few words about the origin of Red Fife. It is generally considered to be a Canadian wheat but in reality it has been shown to be a variety cultivated in Europe under the name "Spring wheat from Galicia ...". This wheat was introduced to Canada in a fairly simple way. A ship laden with winter wheat travelled from Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) to Glasgow and some of this ship's load was sent from Glasgow to Canada. A certain farmer who received this wheat, Mr. David Fife, not knowing what sort of wheat this was, sowed it in the spring. A single plant matured (winter wheat sown in the spring will not form spikes because it has not undergone a cold winter).</p> <p>This plant attracted the attention of Mr. Fife and from it he developed the variety which is generally known under his name in America. However, I have shown by researching its cultivation, milling and bread-baking qualities, that this plant of spring wheat Mr. Fife received was not some mutant produced in Canada, but that it belonged to a variety cultivated in the middle of Europe and was accidentally present as a single grain in this shipment of winter wheat.</p> <p>"We also have another variety that is well known in Canada under the name of White Fife, which is practically identical to Red Fife in every respect with the exception only that it has a pale bran coat. I was never able to discover the origin of this wheat but it seems certain that it is derived from Red Fife. We have also used this variety as a parent for crossings, for the purpose of obtaining a variety with excellent baking qualities."(40, p. 291)</p> <p>An article in <em>The Grain Grower's Guide</em> (No. 968, 7 June 1916, p. 274) entitled "Canadian Wheat History," by S.S. James of the Department of Agriculture surveys the entire history of Red Fife wheat from all sources up to that time, including the testimony of Dr. Charles Saunders in Parliament and a detailed description of how Red Fife got to Manitoba.</p> <p>It is an unfortunate fact that the excellence of Ukrainian wheat often has been credited to Russia, to other neighbours of Ukraine, or other countries. For example, in a publication of the Department of Agriculture by three of Charles Saunders's co-workers, Red Fife is deemed German: "Red Fife was introduced to Canada by way of a dispatch of some wheat that had been shipped out in Danzig, Germany, and a sample had been sent to Mr. David Fife in Peterborough by way of a friend in Glasgow in 1842." Another writer, T. Rose (45) agrees: "Our best-known wheat variety in Canada was Red Fife. It originated from a sample of winter wheat imported from Danzig, Germany."</p> <p>Another publication of the Department of Agriculture opts for Polish origins: "Red Fife was introduced to Canada through a transport of wheat from Danzig, Poland. A sample, which was sent to Mr. David Fife in Peterborough, Ontario, by a friend in Glasgow, 1842 ...".</p> <p>More typically, Red Fife is believed to be Russian. Thus the author of an official publication (42, p. 99) writes that Red Fife was "...a selection from Russian sources." Of the White Russian variety, which is a selection from Red Fife (43, p. 51), another writer asserts (44, p. 100) that "White Russian ...is a variety of Russian origin." According to a third, "Galicia was a part of Russia in 1842...[therefore] Red Fife is a Russian variety." (16, p. 427) But Galicia was not part of Russia in 1842: it was occupied mainly by Austria from the eighteenth century until the breakup of the Habsburg Empire in 1918. Halychanka (Red Fife) wheat was never Russian.</p> <p>Indeed, the so-called Russian wheats, introduced from the northern territories of Russia to Canada, all originated from Ukraine. For example, K. A. Flyaksberger (4) notes that all Russian wheats originated from Ukraine (the so-called "Poltavka" varieties). Moreover, this is supported in the Canadian literature, especially by C. Saunders (46) and Buller (7).</p> <p>Canada's Centennial saw a collection of studies (47) devoted exclusively to wheat breeding in Canada but only one author mentioned Red Fife. Another study (48, p. 234) suggested that Red Fife was ..." a variety of spring wheat that had been developed by one farmer in Ontario from a packet of British wheat sent to him from Scotland. This was the Red Fife wheat."</p> <p>There is one writer, however, who reveals the true source from which Canada obtained Halychanka (Red Fife) wheat: "First of all we have to note that the Carpathian basin and the adjacent areas, mainly western Ukraine, must have been important as a historical region of wheat quality. Although there is a huge variety of forms there, the old local populations belong to one basic type. The main agricultural characteristics of this type are a good winter hardiness, resistance to drought, early maturation, good clearing, a red grain, excellent quality, a small- to medium-sized spike that is not compacted, and a slight susceptibility to fungal diseases. They are mainly winter wheats but in northwestern Ukraine (Galicia) awnless spring wheats also appear. This area is considered to be the birthplace of the Red Fife wheat." (49, p.11-13)</p> <p>There are quite a few other sources on the origin of Halychanka(Red Fife) wheat in addition to the above, scattered throughout various books and periodicals in Canada and abroad. See, for example, one of the English books. (50, p. 378) All of them, however, agree on the origin of this wheat: "it originated in Galicia."</p> <p class="center"><a href="page08_e.htm">Previous</a> / <a href="index_e.htm#contents">Main Table of Contents</a> / <a href="page10_e.htm">Next</a></p> <p class="right"><a href="#top"><img src="/web/20051104080107im_/http://res2.agr.ca/images/top.gif" alt="Go to Top of Page" hspace="0" width="14" height="10" border="0"></a></p><br> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="sidenav"></td> <td class="eighteen"></td> <td class="content"><hr></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="sidenav"></td> <td class="eighteen"></td> <td class="content"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="450" summary="This table assists in the layout of the last date of modification of this document and a link to the important notices information."> <tr> <td class="fiftypercent"><div class="alpha">Date Modified: 2003-08-27</div></td> <td class="fiftypercent-right"><div class="alpha"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20051104080107/http://www.agr.gc.ca/disc_e.phtml">Important Notices</a></div></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>

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From a single seed, Tracing the Marquis wheat success story in Canada