Canada Makes a Film of Wheat

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 68, 22 March 1939, Page 9

Canada Makes a Film of Wheat

TORONTO—The story of Canada’s greatest export, wheat, is told in “The Kinsmen,” a movie recently made under the auspices of the Canadian, wheat board. It will be shown in Great Britain by bakers and millers. The actors in the film are all farmers and workers, and tho story of wheat is followed from seeding to harvest. There is shown the homestead near Peterborough, Ont., of the man who first grew Red Fife wheat. Ploughing, seeding, and harvesting on the prairies is pictured as it is practised by Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, and Englishmen. There are scenes of the shipping o£ grain on mile-long wheat trains, transshipment on the freighters in the Great Lakes, and the storing of the grain in the huge elevators. The film had its premiere in Toronto. A movement is on foot in eastern Ontario to have Fife farm recognized as a national memorial of tho contribution made by David Fife to Canada’s wheat trade. A guest at the premiere was Edwin Fife, who still farms on tho homestead of his grandfather in Otonabee township, Peterborough. One of the early scenes in the picture represents this farm, in tho 80’s, showing the planting of several handfuls of seed from Glasgow. It was grain picked up on the docks. The first planting was a failure. A second planting was tried in the fall, and the seeds sprouted. Just as the grain was ripening the next year, oxen broke into the .ield and trampled down all but a few stalks. A few kernels were rescued, for seed, and that small quantity of wheat was crossed with native grains. From that eventually David Fife developed the strain that was to bear his name.