333 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 



17. Very little harvesting was done at the time, and the standing grain was badly 

 threshed out, in some instances thirty or forty bushels of oats per acre were shed on 

 the ground, f'ortunately, the hail-storm only struck the northern part of the farm. 



The remainder of August was very wet, rain falling more or less nearly every 

 day, making it very difficult to work the binders, and causing much of the grain to 

 sprout in the stock, this, with the bleaching from rain, injured the quality of all sorts 

 of grain. 



As the first severe autumn frost did not occur until September 17, there was 

 no injury from this cause in the latter part of the season, 



EXPEKIMENTS WITH SPRING WHEAT. 



As a result of the unfavourable conditions previously mentioned, the yield of 

 wheat has been very disappointing, and from an experimental standpoint, the result 

 has been even more unsatisfactory, for instance on the date of the hail-storm, a large 

 number of the early varieties were ready to cut, and in fact should have been harvested 

 two days previous, had the weather been favourable; when these varieties were struck 

 by hail they bhflled out badly, while the late tight-chaffed varieties, such as Goose 

 wheat, were very little injured by hail. 



Then again, uneven germination in the spring, and delay in harvesting caused 

 by rain in August, was far more injurious to some varieties than to others, for this 

 reason the returns from this year's uniform trial plots cannot be considered a fair 

 test of the comparative productiveness of the different varieties ; the results, how- 

 ever, are given simply as a matter of information. 



The importance of selecting the most suitable kind of stook for wheat was 

 emphasized this year. While the large round compact stocks stood up well and 

 protected the inner sheaves from bleaching ; such stocks were invariably badly 

 sprouted. The most satisfactory form of stook on this farm was composed of ten 

 sheaves, six of them being placed opposite each other, and the remaining four set 

 outside of the six, so as to break the joints. This form of stook was firm and dried 

 out quickly. 



The land was summer-fallowed the previous year, the uniform trial plots were one- 

 twentieth of an acre each, and the soil was a sandy loam. All the varieties, fifty in 

 number, were sown on April 18. 



