User:Bsoyka/Drafts/Bernhard Warkentin

Bernhard Warkentin (June 19, 1847 –&#32;April 1, 1908) was a Russian immigrant of German extraction, who immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1872. In Russia he had been involved in the family business, the raising and milling of wheat. A de facto leader of a Mennonite emigration and colonization effort, Warkentin purchased over 1300 acre, and established his home and mill here in 1874, while working to assist other German Mennonites in their drive to leave Russia. One of the major improvements in agriculture that Warkentin and the Mennonites brought with them were knowledge of Russian hard wheat varieties, which they brought over in the early years of the colonization. In 1896, Warkentin began working with Mark Carleton of the United States Department of Agriculture to improve American knowledge of Russian wheat varieties, which eventually resulted in the hybridization experiments that produced durum wheat, one of the nation's leading wheat crops.