AGRICULTURE: E. C. MILLER 
429 
rare during the summer in this portion of the Great Plains. Corn, kafir, 
and milo were used in all the experiments with but two exceptions in 
1916. In these two experiments only corn and milo were used. The 
amount of water in the leaves was determined in grams per square meter 
of leaf; percentage on a wet basis and dry basis for each two hour period 
of the experiment. The amount of dry matter was determined in grams 
per square meter of leaf and in percentage of the moist weight of the 
leaf. 
The leaves of milo contained less water at all times than the leaves 
of either corn or kafir at the same stage of development. The average 
water content per square meter of leaf for all the observations made was 
111.4 grams for milo, 123.2 grams for corn and 126.3 grams for kafir. 
The amount of water in the leaves of corn and kafir was practically the 
same at like stages of growth. The small difference between the average 
amount of water in the leaves of kafir as compared with those of corn, 
is due to the fact that in one experiment in 1914 and in two experiments 
in 1916, the leaves of the kafir were about ten days younger than those 
of the corn and, as a consequence, contained a greater amount of water. 
Under the conditions of these experiments, the leaves of corn in most 
cases were wilted during the greater portion of the day. The first signs 
of wilting were most generally observed between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and 
in most cases no visible wilting could be observed after 4 p.m. The 
kafir leaves wilted during the day, but not to the extent that the leaves 
of the corn did while the milo leaves showed little or no signs of wilting. 
Under these conditions the average range between the maximum and 
minimum amount of water per square meter of leaf during the two hour 
periods from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. was 13.8 grams for corn, 8.4 grams for 
kafir and 7.8 grams for milo. 
Table 1 shows the average gain or loss of leaf water during each two 
hour period of the day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the experiments con- 
ducted in 1914, 1915 and 1916. The average gain or loss for each period 
is expressed in grams per square meter of leaf and in percentage based 
on the water in the leaf at the beginning of the two hour period. 
A consideration of the loss of the leaf water during the day shows that 
from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. the rate of loss was practically the same for corn 
and milo and the least for kafir. From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. as the aerial 
conditions became more severe, the rate of loss increased for corn and 
kafir, but decreased almost one half for milo. During the next two hours 
the rate of loss decreased for all three plants, but the rate of loss was ap- 
proximately twice as great for corn and kafir as for milo. From 1 p.m. 
to 3 p.m. the rate of loss continued to decrease, while the rate of loss of 
