432 ■ EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 



Fourth Method. — Ploughed deep (7 to 8 inches) before last of June, and surface- 

 cultivated during the growing season. 



Result. — Sufficient moisture conserved for a dry year, and not too much for a. 

 wet one. Few or no weeds, as all the seeds near the surface have germinated and 

 been killed. Surface soil apt to blow more readily than when either of the other 

 methods is followed. For the past 13 years, the best, safest and cleanest grain has 

 been grown on fallow worked in this way, and the method is therefore recommended. 



Fallows that have been plouglied for the first time after the first of July, and 

 especially after July 15, have never given good results ; and the plan too frequently 

 followed of waiting till weeds are full grown, and often fully ripe, and ploughing 

 under with the idea of enriching the soil, is a method that cannot be too earnestly 

 advised against. 



In the first place, after the rains are over in June or early in July, as they usually 

 are, no amount of work, whether deep or shallow ploughing, or surface cultivation, can 

 put moisture into the soil. The rain must fall on the first ploughing, and be consei-ved 

 by surface cultivation. 



Weeds, when allowed to attain their full growth, take from the soil all the moisture 

 put there by the June rains, and ploughing under weeds with their seeds ripe or nearly 

 so, is adding a thousand fold to the myriads already in the soil, and does not materially 

 enrich the land. 



SEEDmG TO BEOME OR WESTERN RYE GRASS TO PREVENT 



DRIFTING OF SOIL. 



On this farm, during the past season, nothing was more apparent than the 

 advantage of having grass-roots in tlie soil to prevent drifting by the high winds 

 that prevailed at that time. 



While the top-soil of fallowed fields was, day after day, being carried away in 

 clouds and the crops dying by inches, the land containing grass-roots was not in any 

 way disturbed, ai^^l the injury done to crops was by diy weather alone. 



One field ha^ been under Brome grass for five years, was broken in June, and 

 back-set in August, 1899. Another field of rye grass and a mixture of Alsike clover, 

 Ijucerne and Brome grass was broken and back-set during the same months, and both 

 were worked quite fine before the seed was sown. 



PROTECTION OF GRAIN BY HEDGES. 



The various hedges on the farm did good service in protecting the crops from 

 winds, although it so happened that the grain crops were chiefly on fields surrounded 

 by the younger hedges ; otherwise, little or no injury would have been done the grain, 

 notwithstanding the prevalence and severity of the spi'ing winds. 



It was found by measurements that for every foot in height, a hedge protects 

 from 50 to 60 feet in width of crop. From 60 to 80 feet the grain was more or less 

 injured, and outside this distance it was completely killed. 



INSTITUTE MEETINGS. 



During the month of July, I had the pleasure of attending a series of agricultural 

 or institute meetings in Saskatchewan, arranged by the Commissioner of Agriculture 

 for the North-west Territories. 



The Commissioner, Mr. G. H. V. Bulyea, Dr. Fletcher, Entomologist and Botanist 

 Experimental Farms, Ottawa, and Mr. Blakeley, representing the Nor-west Farmer, of 

 Winnipeg, took part in the meetings. 



