News from our rich agriculture history

Western Canada may owe part of its current wheat-growing success to Sir Charles Edward Saunders. Saunders developed the “Marquis” hard red spring wheat variety that was planted in the spring of 1910. Ten years after it was first planted, 90% of the 17 million acres of wheat crops planted in Canada (and much of the United States) was Marquis.

Sir Charles E. Saunders was a plant breeder working for the Government of Canada Experimental Farm Services. His Marquis wheat matured early and was high yielding, it also yielded great results in baking. Saunders is credited with

Thomas Crerar was born in Molesworth, Ontario, but moved to Manitoba during his youth. Crerar established himself as a notable farmer in the province. He grew grain and taught at a rural school in the newly developing province. Around the turn of the century, Crerar expanded his portfolio to leadership, as the manager of the Farmers’ Elevator Co-op, president of the Grain Growers Grain Company and the first reeve of Silver Creek, Manitoba.

Crerar would come to national prominence in the 1910s. At the decades start he was appointed to the board of the Home Bank of Canada.