William Saunders knew how to work with vegetatively propagated fruits. When he found a plant that he liked, all he had to do was to root cuttings, and the new variety, when tested, was ready to distribute. Each plant remained true to type. The seed-propagated wheat was a different problem, as he soon found out. The generations following the cross were bewildering. No two plants were alike. An early selection of one year ripened late the next. Little dwarfs grew mixed with tall stems, and red and white kernels came from seed all selected for one color.

Before 1900 there was no exact knowledge about the behavior of hybrids. The best procedure to get them fixed in type, so that they would produce a uniform crop year after year, was not understood. But soon after 1900, Mendel's experiments became known. Nilsson, in Sweden, had shown the best way to purify a mixed variety of wheat and other self-fertilized plants by the progeny performance record.

In 1903 Charles Saunders, son of William, was placed in charge of the cereal investigations in Canada. Trained in the methods of science at Johns Hopkins, he went at the wheat breeding program from a new viewpoint and with a fresh enthusiasm. He carefully re-selected the various lots of mixed wheat, descendants of those crosses he had helped to make several years before. In order to make the plants uniform, he took single heads and planted the seeds in a separate plot, following the method of Hays in Minnesota and Nilsson in Sweden. If the offspring were again variable, but too promising to discard, another single head was selected. Realizing the importance of knowing something about the bread-making qualities of these new wheats as soon as possible, he chewed the kernels - an old trick learned from practical wheat farmers. If the resulting gum was light in color and rubbery, flour from that wheat could be expected to make good bread. Elasticity in flour paste is an indication of high gluten content, the gluten being a mixture of complex proteins that are present in considerable amount in the kernels along with the starch in those varieties that make the best flour.

Saunders discarded those wheats that chewed into a dark paste or did not make a good gum and all those that did not ripen earlier than Fife. Stiffness of straw, color of kernel, and freedom from rust were all carefully noted. Those that were lacking in any respect were left out at planting time. But still, out of some 700 lots of crossbred wheat, many remained. Growing in the experimental plots at Ottawa, they appeared to be equally good.

The one wheat from this collection that was later to be grown by the millions of bushels from Ontario to British Columbia, and south to the Missouri River, did not stand out as exceptional. Going back over the records this one wheat was later found to be below the average in yield for many years. At Ottawa it ripened only a day or two ahead of Fife - not enough difference to cause it to replace the old standby.

It was out on the prairies of Saskatchewan that this conquering cereal was to meet its test and come through with its golden stalks standing proudly erect. It took that terrible year of 1907, when even the earliest varieties failed to ripen, to prove its real worth to the spring wheat section of North America. It is largely owing to Angus Mackay that this wheat is known at all.

Mackay was a hard-headed settler at Indian Head in Saskatchewan who, largely by accident, had learned the value of summer fallow. It came about in this way. Back in 1885 he had finished plowing his land for wheat, but had it only half sown when a threatened Indian uprising brought the soldiers past his farm. They commandeered his horses and left him nothing to do but to watch the wheat sprout and the fields turn green on half of his farm. The other half remained black and barren save for the weeds starting here and there. Hating the sight of weeds, Mackay finally obtained one horse, too feeble perhaps for the soldiers; it was then too late to sow wheat, but he could at least keep those weeds from growing to seed.

Next year, with his horses back, all his fields were planted - the stubble land where a good harvest had been reaped the year before, as well as the land that had stood bare from planting time to planting time. This year, 1886, was to be put down as the worst the Canadian plains had yet experienced. There had been many dry years in Canada but none that blasted the stalks and shrivelled the grain as this one did. The wheat that the farmers had counted on to send back to the Old Country to compete with the best from Australia and Argentina was fit only for chicken feed - where there was any grain worth harvesting at all.

On Mackay's farm the stage was set for an outstanding demonstration, with results so clear cut and decisive that even the dullest could understand. All the wheat planted on the stubble ground was as poor as that on all the other fields stretching away on every side in one grim desolation, but the wheat on the fallowed field was green and thrifty.

Thirty-five bushels to the acre of plump sound grain were harvested.

Such good news spread far. William Saunders, looking for a man to take charge of a test farm in that district, knew the right kind of superintendent as soon as he saw him. Year after year Mackay was kept busy at the Indian Head farm, growing all kinds of crops, testing many new trees and shrubs, experimenting with new ways of growing old crops and trying new crops in the way that had been found to be the best.