22 
The Coeorado Experiment Station 
In badly affected kernels I do not think that there can be any ques¬ 
tion but that the total nitrogen and the washed gluten are lower 
than in flinty kernels grown under apparently identical conditions 
of soil and weather. This question, however, is entirely beyond 
the purpose of the present bulletin. 
Concerning the cause of mealiness in the Hungarian wheats, 
Dr. Kosutany makes no explicit statements, incidentally, however, 
he does, but considers it with other qualities of the wheat. In dis¬ 
cussing the qualities of wheat produced upon larger estates com¬ 
pared with such as is produced by small growers, he says: 
“Judged by the determination of the degree of mealiness, the bal¬ 
ance swings likewise in favor of the large land-owner and more thorough 
soil culture, which at first sight is surprising, for if the small owner’s 
wheat is smaller grained, then according to the theory which we have 
proposed it should not only be protein-richer but also more glassy, because 
the wheat plant with shallow culture ends its assimilative activity earlier 
and therefore should contain less starch and more gluten in its kernels, 
which must be characterized by a greater glassiness. That this is not 
so can only be explained by this, that the fields in the smaller estates 
were not sufficiently manured and the wheat plants were not supplied 
with a sufficiency of nitrogen by the soils to form therefrom the protein 
corresponding to the (other) conditions. Furthermore, it is possible that 
a less advantageous rotation plays a part in it, in that the small owner 
has planted his wheat after a plant <.crop) that has exhausted the avail¬ 
able nitrogen of the soil so that the wheat grown after it, even with an 
ordinary manuring, must be relatively low in its nitrogen content.” 
The conclusion here stated in reference to the cause of meali¬ 
ness is at variance with the opinions previously given. The pre¬ 
vious views have disregarded the soil as a possible cause of starchi¬ 
ness or have dragged it in in the most incidental manner, apparently 
for the purpose of conceding that the soil has some influence, but 
the manner of statement always carries with it the intimation that 
the soil is at best a minor factor. 
One of the tasks that Dr. Kosutany has set 1 himself is to show 
that the Hungarian wheats have not deteriorated. I understand 
him to adopt the evidently correct view that mealy kernels are apt 
to be lower in proteins than flinty kernels and that a wheat rich 
in protein is probably better than one poorer in protein. With 
these views in mind his statements in the following quotations are 
readily understood. These statements are made near the close of 
his discussion of the relative desirability of wheat grown on large, 
well cultivated and fertilized estates and on smaller ones: 
“I can, therefore, emphatically assert that the statement of those 
who claim to find the reason for the decreasing gluten content of (our) 
wheat in the intensive cultivation is erroneous and on the contrary it can 
