Canada's Wheat King: The Life and Times of Seager Wheeler

By Jim Shilliday format: trade paperback publication: July 2007 ISBN: 9780889771871

Price $19.95 Quantity This item is in stock and usually ships within 24 hours.

Winner of the 2008 Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-fiction

The life of Seager Wheeler is one of the most significant - albeit nearly forgotten - Canadian success stories. He was North America's most celebrated wheat developer, whose varieties in the 1920s made up 40 percent of the world's wheat exports, and contributed wealth to most facets of the Canadian economy. His most publicized accomplishment was being crowned World Wheat King an unsurpassed five times, from 1911 to 1918.

However, although the federal government has proclaimed him an historic personage, and his farm has been designated a national historic site, history itself has underestimated Wheeler's contributions. Glory has been heaped on Dr. Charles Saunders as the "father" of the famed "Marquis" wheat, but Seager Wheeler's crucial role in stabilizing this variety as "Marquis 10B" has been almost completely forgotten.

Wheeler's improved "Marquis 10B" strain was hugely popular and became the foundation stock of the Canadian Seed Grower's Association. The interest engendered by his triumphs with the "Marquis 10B" strain, and as World Wheat King, was an acknowledged factor in Canada's success in luring immigrant farmers to the west.

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