Bonanza Years


M. A. Carleton, a great wheat specialist from Kansas, was sent to Russia the same
spring 1898 to get larger supplies and to extend the work. Many specialists were
set at work proving that good bread could be made from durum wheat. In many
ways Secretary Wilson extended the work and in due time the fight for recognition
was won.
 From this exploration Hansen also secured the progenitors of
the Persian and Honey Dew melons seen in vegetable markets
today. The Persian winter melon seed were sent in 1897 to Utah
and California. Other fine varieties of muskmelons from Russia
succeeded in Colorado and in other Rocky Mountain states.
Through plant introduction, breeding and selection, Hansen has
also made important contributions to such fruits as the pear,
apple, and apricot.
 CARLETON AND NEW WHEAT VARIETIES
 The opportunity to introduce one of our most significant grain
varieties, the Kubanka wheat, fell to Mark Alfred Carleton, wheat
specialist of the Department. This introduction resulted from the
search begun by Colman and continued by Rusk to find grains,
grasses, and forage plants for the West. Attention had been at-
tracted originally to the hard red winter wheats by the Mennonite
German-Russian emigrants to Kansas in 1873 who brought the seed
with them. These hard wheats, frequently introduced as Turkey
wheat, failed to gain popularity due to the objections of millers.
The change to a dependence upon hard wheats was to a large
degree a matter of convincing various interests-farmers, millers,
bakers, and consumers-of their value. (3)
 Carleton's eagerness to search for wheats resistant to rust and
cold grew out of his background in a wheat-growing area in
Kansas, and from his experiments in Maryland with more than
a thousand varieties. These experiments made him realize the wide
range of variation in wheats and the possibility of selecting cer-
tain varieties for specific purposes. A repetition of these experi-
ments in Kansas in 1896-97 gave Carleton additional data and
made him eager to obtain more varieties from the original
sources. Paul de Kruif, in The Hunger Fighters, has vividly
depicted Carleton as a martyr who overcame great odds. Fairchild
in turn wrote that de Kruif "perhaps carried away by the drama
of the situation represented Carleton as having to fight for an
opportunity to visit Russia. This was not the case." Carleton
went as a Special Agent of the government and his reports were
published in the records of the Section of Seed and Plant Intro-