I’ve been reading the Encyclopedia Britannica (yes, start to finish - this is the sort of thing retirement allows) and an offhand reference to unlikely coincidences in the introduction of Red Fife wheat to Canada caught my eye. The Britannica in its magisterial tone did not enumerate those coincidences. A little digging took me to the Canadian Encyclopedia:
Red Fife is Canada’s oldest wheat. One legend states that a load of wheat grown in Ukraine was on a ship in the Glasgow harbour. A friend of David Fife dropped his hat into the red-coloured wheat, collecting a few seeds in the hatband, which he then shipped off to David Fife. The wheat grew. The family cow managed to eat all the wheat heads except for one, which David Fife’s wife salvaged. This was the beginning of Red Fife wheat in Canada.
Of such threads is history woven. Even if it’s a legend, I prefer to believe that it is just unlikely enough to be true.