Famous Canadian's:
Sir Charles Saunders
My name is Charles Saunders. I was born on February 2, 1867. As a young man my main focus was on becoming a musician, but instead I chose a different path becoming a Plant Breeder. I did not really have any interest in becoming a plant breeder but I decided to follow in the footsteps of my father. My 4 brothers and I were all employed in the field of a Plant Breeder.
My father was the first director of the dominion experimental farm that was established in Ottawa in 1886. In 1903 my father put me in charge by of a wheat-breeding program. I wanted to develop a wheat that was suitable for prairies. The result that I came out with in 1904 was Marquis wheat.
Marquis ripened much fairly quickly, had a higher yield, and made much better bread compared to other wheat.
Wheat, Pennsylvania (LOC)
Wheat. Español: Trigo. Français : Blé. Magyar: ...
English: Painting of David Fife, the developer of ...In 1907 I sent a sample of Marquis wheat to the experimental farm in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. In 1909 enough wheat was produced to supply 400 prairie farmers. A year later Marquis wheat seeds were distributed to over 2000 farmers in Western Canada. The original wheat that populated Western Canada was Red fife wheat, the problem with Red fife was that it did not ripen quick enough and farmers could not harvest enough of it before the frost destroyed the wheat. Marquis ripened 20 days quicker than Red fife and it made much better bread. Marquis had an immediate impact in Western Canada by raising wheat production greatly and made Western Canada a major world producer of wheat. That was the year that I received the title of Dominion Cerealist. By 1920 Marquis wheat expanded and had covered over 90% of Western Canada.
Two years later, after 19...