Queen of the Kernels

Like most farm wives, talkative, plumpish Amy Kelsey has chores aplenty. Near British Columbia's Creston (pop. 1,153) she helps her husband tend their ten-acre fruit farm, keep their unpainted frame house pin-neat, still finds time to collect stamps, grow prize wheat and corn. Thirty-five years in the Canadian West have greyed her hair but never dimmed her ardor for blue-ribbon awards. Since 1934, the wheat and corn she planted between the trees in her husband's apple orchards have won 40 prizes in U.S. and Canadian shows.

Last April she sowed a third of an acre to hard red spring wheat, harvested a 200-Ib. crop by hand in mid-July. She sieved, cleaned and polished the individual kernels. Then she spent eye-straining days with a bright light and magnifying glass hand-picking the best 15 pounds. These she shipped off in mid-November to the International Hay and Grain Show in Chicago.

Last week the judges picked Amy Kelsey's hard red wheat as the best shown by U.S. and Canadian farmers. Its kernels were tops in size, weight, uniformity and freedom from disease. At 66.5 Ibs. to the bushel the wheat was close to the alltime record of 67.7. For her wheat, Amy Kelsey got a loving cup, a small cash reward and a title: Wheat Queen of North America. She was the first woman to beat the men in 22 expositions, but that did not surprise her. Said she: "What a man can do, I can do."