44 IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF WHEAT. 



nitrogen production. Their disadvantage lies in the fact that their 

 roots are not sufficiently developed to absorb a large quantity of 

 nitrogenous matter at the time most favorable for its accumulation. 

 As a maximum nitrogen accumulation is the chief desideratum, 

 spring wheats are not desirable where winter ones can be grown. 



This does not mean that a variety of wheat which has been grown, 

 for instance, in England will show all the qualities of an inland 

 wheat when first grown in Kansas or Nebraska. Such a wheat will 

 undergo modifications that will give it some of these qualities, such, 

 for instance, as less well-filled kernels, and less weight per bushel. 

 On the other hand, the Turkish Red wheat, when raised in a cool, 

 moist climate, becomes later maturing, and the kernel becomes 

 plumper, more starchy, and softer. It is betw^een varieties adapted 

 each to its peculiar climate, and raised there for years, that these 

 distinctions are most marked, but the fact that a modification of 

 an}^ variety begins at once when transferred from one climate to 

 another shows that such qualities as those mentioned are influenced 

 by the climate. 



It must be quite apparent, although it has not often been remarked, 

 that the ordinary selection of seed wheat to increase the yield has 

 resulted in producing a grain of lower nitrogen content. 



This has been noticed by Girard and Lindet " and by Biff en, ^' and 

 incidentally by Balland,'' who, in commenting on the decrease iii 

 the nitrogen content of wheat in northern France and the increased 

 yields, attributes the former to a deficiency of nitrogen in the fer- 

 tilizers used, and states that the gluten in the wheat of that region 

 in 1848 ranged from 10.23 to 13.02 per cent, while fifty years later 

 it ranged from 8.96 to 10.62 per cent. In the same time the aver- 

 age yield increased from 14 to 17.5 hectoliters per hectare. In the 

 light of the results of experiments to ascertain the effect of nitroge- 

 nous fertilizers upon the composition of wheat, it can not be supposed 

 that tliis decrease in nitrogen content can be due primarily to lack 

 of nitrogen. It would seem more likely that the increased yield 

 was largely due to the deposition of starch in the grain, and that 

 consequently the percentage of gluten was smaller. 



Has the improvement in the yield of wheat been accompanied by 

 a greater yield of nitrogen per acre? It is evident that the increase 

 in the grain and that in the nitrogen are not proportional, but it is 



« Le Froment et sa Monture, Paris, 1903. 

 & Nature (London), 69 (1903), No. 1778, pp. 92, 93. 



c Abstract in Centrlb. f. Agr. Chem., 1897, p. 785, from Corapt. Rend., 124 (1897), 

 p. 158. 



