A Study of Colorado Wheat 
35* 
These facts are in harmony with others obtained with the wheat 
berry grown with different quantities of water. 
We are justified by the latter facts in going fu,rther and as¬ 
serting that the time of the application of water to the soil, pro¬ 
vided there be at all times a sufficient amount of water present, does 
not make the differences which we are considering. This statement 
contemplates the application of water to the soil up to within fifteen 
days of the harvest. These statements are, however, in anticipation 
of the discussion of the work done with the berry and not with the 
plant. 
There are three facts left in the problem, the prevailing tem¬ 
perature, the application of the water to the plant, not to the soil, 
and the sunshine. While it may be true that the temperature af¬ 
fected our problem, it seems difficult to believe tliat a difference of 
a few degrees should make such a radical dift'erence in the amount 
of the total nitrogen in the plant, especially as the mean tempera¬ 
ture for July was 64.74 and for August 62.77, which includes a pe¬ 
riod from before blooming till the maturity of the plant. 
I am not conversant with any data on the minimum ene.rgy re¬ 
quirements of the wheat plant that serves to aid me in a solution of 
this question, but until I obtain further light upon the question, I 
shall consider the heat energy at the disposal of the plant as fully 
adequate. If this view be correct, we have left but two factors, 
the application of the water to the plants in frequent light rains 
and the prevalent cloudiness of the season. The determining 
factor seems to be either a combination of these two, or one or 
the other of them. It is a fact that the plants were wet a great 
deal of the time either from rain or dew. I do not think that 
we, at any time during the season, collected a sample of dry 
plants, except near or after midday, and the plants were often 
wet throughout the day. This fact impresses itself upon me as 
of great importance in our p.roblem. Had we had wet plants, 
as we did have, and at the same time our usual amount of sunshine, 
1 imagine that things would have stood much worse with us than 
they did at the end of July, for the plants would certainly have 
been scalded, if no worse trouble had ensued. 
I do not intend in any way to indicate that continued cloudiness 
is not a factor in this question, but at the present time I believe that 
the frequent light rains and consequent heavy dews which kept our 
plants dripping wet for so large a portion of each day, often all day 
long, was the more important factor of the two. I do not recall 
having seen any data on this point and have made no experiments 
myself to study the effects of such conditions. 
