286 



the spring. Farmers only sow Eed Fife, and it has been proven that Red Fife will 

 stand sowing* almost at any time. Again, three-fourths of the varieties of grain 

 tested on the experimental farm are new or foreign sorts that cannot be expected 

 to stand as wellas JRed Fife,theonevariety almost universally sown all over the country. 

 It is safe to say that if Eed Fife, White Fife or any othei- proved variety was alone 

 used on the Expei'imental Farm a very small proportion only of this injury would 

 be done. Again, take oats. A farmer sows his oats in almost ever}'' case on stubble 

 land which never is injui'ed by wind, no matter how severe. On this farm we cannot 

 use stubble land for any kind of grain and keep the sorts pure or give fair results 

 from such a test, as the returns from such land would contain at least a portion 

 of the preceding crop, as it is well known that fallen grain i-emains perfectly good 

 until turned under the following spring, when it readily germinates. Other reasons 

 might be given why the wind storms in spring are more injurious to crops on the 

 experimental farm than to the country at large, and while it is not asserted that 

 the farmer receives no damage, those who may read this report are asked to consider 

 the wonderful crops raised in the JS'oith-West the past j'^ear, and in that year was 

 exjDerienced the most severe wind storms known for years. 



SMUDGES. 



For som'e j-ears past smudges as a means of preventing grain being injured by 

 frost have been believed in by many; others have found them ineffectual. To as 

 thoroughly test this matter as it was possible to do, a circular flower garden, 100 

 feet in diameter, was chosen as being the most susceptible to frost, and a piece of 

 ground that could be most easily and most effectually smudged. A pile of dry straw 

 and coarse manure was heaped on the windward side of this garden. Two ther- 

 mometers were placed in this plot, one in the centre, 2 feet above the ground, the 

 other on the outer edge, on the ground ; two other instruments were in their stand, 

 200 feet away, and out of the direct course of the smoke. On the night of the 12th 

 of September everything indicated frost. At sundown the thermometer began to 

 go down lapidly, and at nine o'clock 33 degi"ees was recorded. The smudges were 

 at this point started, and for two and a-half hours one continual volume of smoke 

 enveloped the garden. So dense was the smoke that when the thermometer in the 

 centre of the gai'den was examined a lantern had to be used to find it. Every fifteen 

 or twenty minutes all the instruments were examined, and no difference whatever 

 was observed in any one of them. The smoke, on leaving the flower bed, enveloped 

 or passed over a field of oats ; these, with the flowers, were all frozen. You will 

 remember when here on the 26th of August how rapidly the temperature fell on 

 that evening, and that while you attended to the thermometers men and teams were 

 piling up straw in heaps in a large field of grain containing between seventy and 

 eighty experimental plots. These piles of straw, though happily not required that 

 night, were on the 12th of September in the right place, and part of them added 

 their gusts of smoke in the attempt to save the grain from injury. Unfortunately 

 no house was in front of these piles as there was in front of the flower garden, and 

 instead of settling over the plots the smoke took a direct line upwards, and was 

 practically of no use. 



The tempeiature fell on this occasion to 23, or 9 degrees of frost. Whether 

 smoke with only three or four degrees of frost would be of any use is doubtful, 

 though believed in by many. The fact of our four thermometers going down 

 together seems to me to point to only one conclusion, namely, that smoke is ineffec- 

 tual in saving grain fi-om frost. 



From the test made on the 12th September, I would strongly advise fai-mers not 

 to place much reliance on smoke in saving their wheat, but rather to trust in good 

 seed early sown. 



