A Study od Colorado Wheat 
.115 
pli-calior. of 15.67 loads of well-rotted manure produced no effect either 
on the amount of the yellow-berry, or upon the composition of the 
wheat in two out of the three cases. The third case, standing against 
the two others, and being moderate in amount, is not sufficient to pre¬ 
clude almost any other explanation. 
It is not a new observation that the application of farmyard man¬ 
ure may increase the yield of both the straw and grain without affect¬ 
ing the composition of the latter. Ritthausen and Dr. R. Pott, after 
stating that it has been frequently observed that the liberal application 
of nitrogenous manures generally increases the protein in the mass of 
the plant produced, and adding that this has been proven beyond doubt, 
for root crops, potatoes, beets, etc., continue: “The results that have 
been obtained in growing grains (Samen) have proved much less definite. 
While the older investigations of Hermbstaedt * and Boussingault f show 
that wheat and rye seed increase notably in their protein content on the 
liberal manuring of the soil with substances rich in nitrogen, those of John 
in Hohenheim and further those instituted by Lawes and Gilbert yield con¬ 
trary results, according to which the content of these substances (protein) 
in the seeds is more or less depressed, and A. Mueller finds in the analyses 
of barley, grown after different manuring, no essential difference in the 
composition.§ 
^‘It accordingly appears doubtful that manuring with nitrogenous sub¬ 
stances exercises a definite influence upon the protein content of the seed.’^$ 
Ritthausen and Pott used sodic nitrate and ammonic sulphate as 
nitrogenous manures in their experiments and found an increase of 
32.0 percent in the amount of nitrogen in the harvested grain. They 
take the average percentage of nitrogen present in the unfertilized plots 
as 100 and the average found for those fertilized with nitrogen was 132. 
Some of these experiments were made eighty-odd years ago, but 
we have the same results now as then. The effect of farmyard manure 
is at best doubtful, so far as the composition is concerned, but not at 
all in regard to the crop. The data given by Kosutany || show that 
farmyard manure does not always increase the nitrogen contained in 
the berry. The increase shown in his two pairs of analyses is 0.31 and 
1.69 percent of protein respectively. The latter difference may have 
been due to the effects of the manure, but Ritthausen and Pott obtained 
an increase of 5.19 percent of protein by the use of nitrogen as sodic 
nitrate or ammonic sulphate. 
* 
I 
r 
Schweig’ger .Tourn., 46-278-285; Erdmann -Journ. fiiei* tech ii oekonon, 
"Chetnie XLE, 1-53 (18321)! See also Wolff die chemischeri. 
'f Boussihg’ault, die Landwirthschaft, 1. p. 29,(i!-291 
§ Stockhardt Zeitschrift, fuer deutche Eandwirthe (1855) p. 172-174. 
t H. Ritthausen and Hi:. R, Pott. ;E)ie landwirthschaftlichen Versiichs-Sta- 
tipnen Vol. XVI. p 285, Author’s translation. 
II Kdsutany D^r ungarische Weizen und das ungarische Mehl pp. 171-172. 
