grown in nearly all the dryfarm states and especially in the Great Plains area.  Wherever tried they have yielded well, in some cases as much as the old established winter varieties.  The extreme hardness of these wheats made it difficult to induce the millers operating mills fitted for grinding softer wheats to accept them for flourmaking purposes.  This prejudice has, however, gradually vanished, and to-day the durum wheats are in great demand, especially for blending with the softer wheats and for the making of macaroni.  Recently the popularity of the durum wheats among the farmers has been enhanced, owing to the discovery that they are strongly rust resistant.

The winter wheats, as has been repeatedly suggested in preceding chapters, are most desirable for dry-farm purposes, wherever they can be grown, and especially in localities where a fair precipitation occurs in the winter and spring.  The hard winter wheats are represented mainly by the Crimean group, the chief members of which are Turkey, Kharkow, and Crimean.  These wheats also originated in Russia and are said to have been brought to the United States a generation ago by Mennonite colonists.  At present these wheats are grown chiefly in the central and southern parts of the Great Plains area and in Canada, though they are rapidly spreading over the intermountain country.  These are good milling wheats of high gluten content and yielding abundantly under dry-farm conditions.  It is quite clear that these wheats will soon displace the older winter wheats formerly grown on dry-farms.  Turkey wheat promises to become the leading dry-farm wheat.  The semisoft winter wheats are grown chiefly in the intermountain country.  They are represented by a very large number of varieties, all tending toward softness and starchiness.  This may in part be due to climatic, soil, and irrigation conditions, but is more likely a result of inherent qualities in the varieties used.  They are rapidly being displaced by hard varieties.

The group of soft winter wheats includes numerous varieties grown extensively in the famous wheat districts of California, Oregon, Washington, and northern Idaho.  The main varieties are Red Russian and Palouse Blue Stem, in Washington and Idaho, Red Chaff and Foise in Oregon, and Defiance, Little Club, Sonora, and White Australian in California.  These are all soft, white, and rather poor in gluten.  It is believed that under given climatic, soil, and cultural conditions, all wheat varieties will approach one type, distinctive of the conditions in question, and that the California wheat type is a result of prevailing unchangeable conditions.  More researeh is needed, however, before definite principles can be laid down concerning the formation of distinctive wheat types in the various dry-farm sections.  Under any condition, a change of seed, keeping improvement always in view, should be baneficial.