Properties of Colorado Wheat ii 
There is another way that we judge whether a wheat is soft 
or hard. If the wheat is dark-colored, glassy, and more or less 
translucent, we say that it is hard; it looks flinty. If, on the other 
hand, it has a yellowish white, chalky or mealy appearance, 
we say that it is soft. Of the former, we say that it is rich irv 
gluten, of the latter that it is poor in gluten; it is starchy. This 
is about as near as one can arrive at a definition of hard and soft 
wheat, but the distinction is really of a great deal of importance, 
for the flour yielded by hard wheat is more desirable for bread¬ 
making than that made from soft wheat. 
There are differences in varieties in this respect; for instance, 
our Colorado Defiance is, at the very best, a soft wheat compared 
with Kubanka, a durum wheat, or with Turkey Red. This, how¬ 
ever, is not the softness of which we set out to find the cause. It 
must be remembered that some grains of Defiance wheat are harder 
than other grains and the same is true of other varieties. Some 
grains of Kubanka are flinty and very hard, while others are 
mealy and much softer. Now it sometimes happens that all the 
grains are mealy and soft when they ought to be flinty and hard, 
and it is the cause of this that we have been trying to find out, 
and not why one variety is harder than another. 
A few years ago spring wheat was grown almost exclusively 
and Defiance, a soft wheat, was our popular variety. Of late years 
we have been growing other varieties and more winter wheat, 
so that the wheat milled now may be harder than that previously 
milled, and the flour produced better. I make this statement in 
this connection, for I think that the reader should bear in mind 
the fact that the practices of the country have changed in regard 
to wheat growing of late years, whereas, the reputation of our 
wheat has not changed and what may have been true of our flour 
some years ago, may not be true now. The low estimate so 
generally put upon our flour some years ago may have been just, 
but may not be just at this time, and still that reputation will be 
passed along and be kept alive for a long time to come. 
AMOUNT OF IRRIGATING WATER DID NOT AFFECT 
QUALITY 
Let us return to the question why some grains of wheat, or a 
whole crop, may be yellow and soft and others amber-colored, 
flinty and hard. The amount of irrigating water applied not only 
did not produce such results, but did not seem to influence them 
• either one way or the other in the experiments that we made, and 
the effect of rain was not to produce this peculiar condition. The 
reader will observe that this is stated as a matter of fact, that the 
