Properties oe Colorado Wheat 
23 
to this generally prevailing bad impression of our wheats and 
flours. The three varieties of spring wheat chosen for our experi¬ 
ments represent two of the hardest and our own Defiance, not 
only a soft wheat, but one which was originated here and has been 
grown in this section for 30 or more years and represents perfectly 
a Colorado product which from the beginning was adapted to 
Colorado conditions. 
We were very fortunate the first year of our experiments, 
1913, in having* an ideal season, so that no unfavorable seasonal 
influence interfered with the quality of the crop. This was not 
the case in the succeeding three seasons, 1914, 1915 and 1916. So 
far as our 1916 experiments are concerned, we simply abandoned 
the large plots. The seasons of 1914 and 1915 favored a strong 
development of rust which made a big difference in the quality 
of the grain. 
In 1913, as I have just said, the season was as nearly ideal 
for our experiments as we can ever expect a season to be. We had 
two hard wheats and one soft wheat. Our experiment could work 
both ways, to soften the two hard wheats or to harden the soft 
wheat. 
The softening of wheat under Colorado conditions seemed 
to me to show that the usual explanations for this condition could 
not be true. I believed that it must be due to something in the 
soil or possibly to irrigation as some claimed, though I did not 
belive this latter, for I knew that our dry-land wheat, and dry 
land here means really dry land, not a country of 19 or more inches 
of rainfall, fairly well distributed, is often quite soft, or shows 
yellow-berry badly. For reasons which it will be well to leave 
out in this place, I thought that the key to the matter lay in the 
food supply furnished the plant. I could, in a measure, control 
this and the amount of water, but in regard to the weather, I had 
to take my chances. Concerning the irrigating water and its 
effects, I have already said that it may determine the size of the 
crop but not its quality, as our problem has to do with the quality 
alone, the question of water is wholly set aside. 
There are only three plant foods, aside from water, which 
it is deemed in any case necessary to add to the soil. These are 
potash, phosphorus and nitrogen. I have stated on previous pages 
that nitrogen must be present as nitric nitrogen, i. e., in the form 
of some nitrate, in order to be taken up by the wheat plant. The 
land that was placed at my disposal, fortunately, did not need the 
addition of anything to produce the biggest crop for the season. 
So the addition of these plant foods would simply show the effects 
of the food or fertilizer applied upon the quality of the grain 
