Hayes and Garber - Cucurbit Breeding

136 BREEDING CROP PLANTS
Among other varieties produced by crossing which are of
economic importance may be mentioned Comback, Cedar,
Firbank, Bobs, Florence and Cleveland.
Farrer's method of breeding seems to have been based on
inducing maximum variation through composite crossing and then
subjecting the progeny to selection. He was a keen observer and
possessed ability to pick out forms which proved of economic
value. This emphasizes the need of a knowledge of the characters
of a crop with which the breeder is to work, which is as
essential as a knowledge of laws of breeding.
FIG. 27. A section of the winter wheat plant breeding nursery in the spring
of 1918. The three rows at the right are Minhardi, a very winter-hardy wheat
produced from a cross of Odessa with Turkey. In right center are three rows of
Turkey, Minn. 1487.
Marquis Wheat. If the spring wheat known as Marquis
(Saunders, 1912) were the only one of economic importance which
had been produced by artificial crossing, the practice would be
justified. The early history of this wheat is somewhat obscure.
It is one of the descendants of a cross between an early ripening
wheat from India, Hard Red Calcutta 9 and Red Fife cf. The
cross was made by A. P. Saunders, probably at the experimental
farm at Agassiz, Canada, in 1892. The crossed seed or its
progeny was transferred to the Ottawa Experimental Farm.
In 1903 Chas. E. Saunders took charge of the cereal breeding at
this place and immediately initiated a series of selections from the