Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/530

526 The reports on the Early Riga wheat are most gratifying. The proportion of gluten found in this variety is about twenty per cent, more than in Red Fife and the quality of gluten equal. To find a wheat superior in quality to Red Fife is what one would scarcely expect; but to find that superiority associated with so much earliness—from eight to nine days as an average of five years' trial—is highly satisfactory. The general introduction of such a wheat will probably extend the wheat-growing area in Canada and make it successful at points farther north than is possible with the varieties at present grown. The fact that it falls a little below Red Fife in yield is more than atoned for by its earliness and quality. The outlook in this connection is most encouraging and the results a triumph of the skill of the plant breeder.

The relation between the very important varieties described may be represented as in the accompanying diagram:

The cultivation of the different varieties was carried on by Dr. Saunders and his assistants, but the value of the product was determined not only by the chemist of the experimental farms, but by one