Seager Wheeler

Seager Wheeler (1868 to 1961) was a Canadian agronomist known as the Wheat King of the prairies. Born on the Isle of Wight, he emigrated to the Canadian prairies in 1885, worked on farms for five years and then took his own homestead near Rosthern, Saskatchewan, where he owned and ran Seager Wheeler's Maple Grove Farm. He produced viable economic wheat and fruit strains for the short prairie growing season and harsh winters, developed dryland farming techniques and invented equipment. Five separate wheat entries grown on his farm between 1911 and 1918 won world wheat championships, and in 1911 he took the Canadian Pacific Railway prize for the best North American hard spring wheat. He co-wrote Seager Wheeler's Profitable Grain Growing, received an honorary doctorate from Queen's University in 1919, and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1945. He was designated a person of national historic significance in 1988.