Carleton, Mark Alfred (1866-1925)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1926 Nov 17 p. 8

Birth date: 1866

text of obituary:

Benefactor of Wheat Farmers Dies Forgotten Far Away

M. A. Carleton the man who remade the wheat crop of the West and died forgotten in a foreign land, started out from Wichita on the carer [sic] that put millions of dollars into the pockets of the wheat raisers of the nation. Between 1887 and 1889, he was professor of botany at Garfield university, now Friends university. Congressman Will Ayres was his pupil and one of the few men here who remember him. But his beginnings here are almost as abscure [sic] as his memory among the wheat raisers whom he rescued from season after season of failure with the introduction of Kubanka durum wheats and the hard red Kharkoff winter variety.

In a current issue of the Country Gentleman, Paul De Kruif gives a vivid account of the life and work of this man who put the wheat growers in a position to “look a hard winter in the eye” only to die of a broken heart at the untimely age of 59.

Concerning Carleton

De Kruif, one of the country’s foremost biographers and scientific research writers, says of him:

“There is no question that Mark Alfred Carleton, who died most miserably forgotten last year in a pestole [sic] in Peru, put uncounted millions of dollars into the pockets of American farmers, millers and grain men.

“There is no doubt that this same Carleton, who was kicked out of the government service in 1918, discovered the magnificent Kubanka durum wheat growing in its ancient home on the Turgai steppe and brought it to a new home on more than 4,000,000 acres of the land of our Northwest.

“It cannot be denied that Mark Carleton — who at the same time lost one of his children and his home, to say nothing of his teeth as well as his job — was the man who by his sharpeyed explorations brought the tough red winter Kharkoff wheat out of windy Starobielsk in Russia onto almost 20,000,000 acres of the dark earth of our great plains of the West.

“Now the strangest part of his grand and melancholy story is this: That the very qualities which made him one of the most notable of all Americans also brought him to his ultimate disaster. For he was a visionary. That was what caused him to revolutionize our western wheat industry. He was a dreamer. That was what brought him to his end.”

In Kansas in 1876

Born in Jerusalem, Ohio, he went to country school there. In 1876, when he was 10 years old, his family moved to Cloud county, Kan. That year the black stem rust rode the wind and destroyed thousands of acres which the grain men depended upon to furnish them a living. The experience of that year probably was the first thing to focus Carleton’s mind on the subject of whet. In 1887, at the age of 21, he graduated from the Kansas State Agricultural college and accepted a position in Garfield university here to teach botany.

Perhaps Carleton’s name is still on the records, wherever the complete records of the old university may e. But it seems this man passed unnoticed in Wichita as he hid almost everywhere, despite his gigantic labors and accomplishments. He was not a man to attract attention to himself or to make many friends. At least no one connected with Friends, the university that succeeded Garfield, was able to identify him with either institution.

Carleton was not satisfied with his work here. The narrow confines of a room were not for him. His laboratory was the wide world and he went from here back to Manhattan, where he was made assistant botanist at the experiment station. When he was 27, he made the riscovery [sic] that black stem rust varied in different grain plants. Everyone believed it could jump from oats to rye and from rye to wheat. But his endless, tireless and practical experiments disproved the theory.

Cerealist in 1894

Carleton went to Washington in 1894 as a cerealist to supervise all the government’s work on wheat. There he continued experiments in the hope of finding a wheat that would defy black rust and other ailments. he sent to the ends of the earth and got samples of the prized varieties of all countries. In the Maryland climate they thrived, although inoculated with disease. Unsatisfied, he brought the seed of all varieties to the Stimmel farm near Salina. That year a cold, dry winter came and blew it all out of the ground.

Carleton was pleased, if anything, for it proved his point that a tougher wheat must be found.

In roaming about the wheat country as was his wont, he encountered the Russian Mennonite farmers of Kansas. The bitter years of the 1890's has chased upwards of a quarter of a million people out of Kansas. But the Mennonites were not chased out. They raised from 25 to 35 bushels of wheat to the acre while ruin raged around them. Turkey wheat, it was called. it came from Turgai. their fathers had brought the seed when they came across the ocean. Each pioneer carried a bushel of wheat seed besides his baggage.

Carleton became obsessed with the notion of going to Russia to seek the ideal wheat for his own country. He bulldozed official Washington and, when only the excuse remained that he could not speak Russion [sic] he crammed away at the language and finally talked his superiors into sending him. Diligently he roamed the black lands of Russia in he summer, autumn and winter of 1898. He came to the Turgai steppe in Siberia steppe in Siberia and there he found Kubanka and knew his search was done. He bought up quantities of seed and shipped it to America. he came home and became the prophet of the wheat plains, preaching constantly to farmers to raise the hard wheat he had sent them, to millers to build mills to grind it, to bakers to get them to bake the better bread the Kubanka would produce. It was a hard job. They didn’t take the protein content business so seriously in those days — the protein content that has brought Kansas wheat into demand.

His Big Year in 1904

In 1900, Carleton went back to Russia and returned with the Kharkoff wheat. 1904 came his big year. Farmers were planting two acres of Fife and Bluestem to one of Kubanka for the grain men were offering low money for it.

Then came the black rust. It was amazing. Through Nebraska and the Dakotas from 50 to 60 per cent of the soft whet went under and Kubanka was hardly scratched. In five years, durum wheat yields jumped from Next to nothing to 20,000,000 bushels. Kharkoff caught on first in Kansas and spread like wildfire.

Carleton’s personal troubles began when one of his four children was stricken with infantile paralysis. He plunged into debt in the hope of saving her. the climax came in 1917 when he found himself heavily involved with no way to turn. Charges that he was neglecting his work were preferred against him and dropped.

Carleton borrowed $4,000 from a rich man of the opposite political party and that was his undoing. He was given a 90-day furlough, during which time he was told he would have to pay back the loan or give up his official position.

A daughter died, the mortgage on his home was foreclosed. To save burial expenses, it was necessary to have his daughter’s body cremated. Carleton fainted during the ceremony. He was afflicted with rheumatism.

Wanders over World

From one forlorn job to another Carleton wandered over the owrld principally in South American countries. He was lonely. his family was in the North. He wound up at Paita in Peru.

Carleton married a Kingman girl, Amanda Faught, in 1897. She was the daughter of Robert Faught who was once sheriff of that county.

Wichita prides itself as a grain market. the wealth of the wheat lands flows through the market here. it was hard wheat that brought that wealth.

But who remembers Carleton? Congressman Ayres does, but then Ayres had contact with him in Washington and even Ayres did not know, for sure whether the man was dead. He was almost unknown and his passing from Wichita was not remarked although he left here to embark upon a mission the accomplishment of which makes him the greatest Jayhawker of them all — Wichita Eagle.