THE PROPERTIES OF COLORADO 
WHEAT 
By 
W. P. HEADDEN 
This station has published four bulletins* as the result of its 
study of Colorado wheat. These bulletins have been written for 
the student of this subject rather than for the farmer of Colorado. 
In presenting this subject to students it was necessary to give a 
mass of details of so good as no interest to others than such as 
are not satisfied with the statement of general results. This bulle¬ 
tin is not written for that class of readers. All such readers are 
referred to the previous bulletins wherein they will find a great 
many details of the investigation. 
GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT COLORADO WHEAT 
MAKES INFERIOR FLOUR 
It has been a generally accepted statement among us that 
wheat grown in Colorado is “soft” and does not make as good flour 
as the wheat grown in many of the Northwestern States. The 
question why, has usually been answered by the statement that 
our wheat does not contain as much gluten as the harder wheats. 
It has been the belief of both bakers and housewives that Colorado 
flour yields less bread than Kansas or Minnesota flour, because, 
as has generally been accepted, the flour will not take up as much 
water in making a dough, which is a result of there being less 
gluten in it. These are the reasons that I have heard stated for 
the preference given to Minnesota and Kansas flours over our 
Colorado flour and for their very general use by bakers and our 
housewives in bread-making. The Colorado flour is credited with 
making an attractive, white, well-flavored loaf, but smaller and 
lacking, in some important respects, those superior qualities for 
which the Minnesota and Kansas flours are justly prized. 
We assumed all of these statements, made concerning our 
wheat, to be correct; for instance, we assumed that the statement 
that a hard seed from Kansas or North Dakota produced a soft 
wheat when planted in Colorado and that this soft wheat produced 
a less desirable flour than the parent wheat. We proposed to 
inquire into the facts and, if we should find these statements 
♦Bulletins Nos.: 205, 208, 217, and 219. 
