II2 
CoivORADO Experiment Station 
which an excess of water may act in bringing about this mealy condi¬ 
tion of wheat, namely, by diluting the nitrates. 
Lawes and Gilbert, discussing the effects of rain on the wheat 
crop, say: “It has of course long been known that an excess of wet is 
injurious to the wheat crop, but it is only comparatively recently that one 
at least of the material causes of the adverse influence has been clearly 
made out; namely, the great loss of nitrogen carried off by drainage in the 
form of nitrates.”* 
I have shown, in Bulletin 208 and again in Bulletin 217, the extent 
to which the nitrates may be washed out of the soil by an irrigation. 
Further, it has been stated that the application of 40 pounds of nitro¬ 
gen per acre applied at the time of planting produced the characteristic 
effects of the nitrates though an irrigation of i acre-foot was applied 
on 12 June, nearly a month before the plants came into bloom. We 
have also demonstrated how efficient such an irrigation is in removing 
the nitrates from the upper portions of the soil, and further, the rate 
at which they are re-established in our soil, knowing very well, that this 
rate depends upon the nitrifying efficiency of the soil with which we 
are dealing. 
VARIATION OF NITRIC-NITROGEN IN SOIL AFFECTS MEALINESS 
OR STARCHINESS OF CROP 
There is another way of looking for the cause of this mealiness 
and flintiness in the kernels; this is to ascertain whether the char¬ 
acteristic differences in the composition of these kernels can be prcn 
duced at will by the fertilizers applied. If so, the cause will be more 
firmly established. We have given, in the table “The Composition of 
Yellow-berry and Flinty Kernels Grown Under Identical Conditions^’, 
fifteen pairs of analyses made on kernels of these characters selected 
from the same sample of grain. We find that the flinty berries are 
uniformly higher in total nitrogen, true gluten, gliadin and glutenin 
than the yellow-berry kernels. We find the same difference, only in a 
slightly greater degree, between the wheats grown with the application 
of nitrates and the averages for all the other samples. In 1913 we 
have, for the average of all the samples grown without the application 
of nitrates, 12.53 percent protein and 7.55 percent of true gluten, for 
the samples grown with nitrates 14.17 percent protein and 9.11 percent 
true gluten; in 1914 we have 9.42 percent protein and 6.91 percent true 
gluten for the samples grown without and 11.61 percent protein and 
8.67 percent true gluten for those grown with the application of the 
nitrates. In 1915 we have 8.95 percent protein and 5.67 percent true 
gluten for the samples grown without and 11.50 percent protein and 
* “Our Climate and our Wheat Crops,’’ Rothamsted Memoirs, V. 
