16 Colorado Experiment Station 
sufficient to perceptibly modify the effects of 40 pounds of nitro¬ 
gen applied in the form of Chile-saltpetre at the time of planting, 
and, as this amount of water is, under our usual conditions, suffi¬ 
cient to mature our wheat in the very best manner, there is no 
reason at all why such a thing as the washing out of the nitrates, 
due to water applied, should happen. I think that usually 1 acre- 
foot applied when the wheat is in boot or early head is about 
the maximum that will be found necessary. 
Some writers have stated that wheat is softened by irrigating 
it. The statements just made shoAV how this might be the case, 
but I think that it seldom happens in our practice that wheat is 
softened by over irrigation. It is, however, worth bearing in 
mind, that while water is indispensable, we can do harm by using 
too much of it. 
CHIEF CAUSE OF SOFTENING IS EXCESS OF POTASH 
OVER NITROGEN 
The only cause for the softening of our wheat, unless it be 
where subirrigation is practiced, is, I think, due to the large 
excess of potash over the nitric nitrogen present in our soil. This 
nitric nitrogen, then, is something that we should cultivate and 
preserve in our soils if we wish to grow good wheat. I have said 
“cultivate” for this is one of the things that we do when we culti¬ 
vate our land fallow. 
COLORADO WHEAT VARIES GREATLY IN 
COMPOSITION 
Our wheat varies greatly in respect to its hardness. I have 
samples from some sections of the State that are as good wheat 
as we could possibly desire, and I have others that are as soft as 
wheat can be. The Defiance is a very popular spring wheat, but 
it is often an extremely soft wheat, though the grains are large 
and the yield is satisfactory. This latter statement has not been 
exemplified in my own experience. Red Fife and Kubanka have 
each yielded better than it for the 5 years that I have grown them 
side by side. Defiance wheat has not only failed to give me the 
yield, it has not had the quality of these others. The Kubanka is 
a durum wheat and it may be that I should not compare the 
Defiance with it, but this is not the case with the Red Fife. I 
have seen some samples of winter wheat which were very soft 
but the most of it is very good, hard wheat, and, as I believe, 
worth just as much as wheat grown anywhere. This lack of uni¬ 
formity in the quality of our wheat is unfortunate, for it seems 
to be true that the soft wheat is not so desirable as the hard wheat. 
