REPORT OF MR. R. ROBERTSON 



277 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



month the thermometer went below zero every night, 13° below on the 8th was the 

 lowest for the month. 



March. The first half of this month was fine with the exception of light snow- 

 falls on the 2nd, 8th, 14th and 15th, the balance of the month being rough with high 

 winds, rain and snowstorms. On the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th, the mercury registered 

 below zero, 15° below on the Gth being the lowest recorded for the month. From this 

 date until the end of the month very little frost was experienced. The extremes for 

 this time being 47° on the 31st, and 13° on the 16th. 



METEOROLOGICAL RECORD. 



The maximum and minimum monthly thermometrical observations for the year 

 beginning December 1, 1905 and ending March 31, 1907. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH OATS. 



Experiments were again conducted ''is year with the leading sorts of oats which 

 v,'ere grown in uniform test plots of one-fortieth acre each. Thirty-seven varieties 

 were included in this test. The plots received the same treatment and were on soil 

 practically uniform throughout. 



The ground was a clay loam, on which mangels were grown the previous year 

 (1905), for which crop twenty one-horse cart loads of barnyard manure per acre were 

 used. Groin was grown on this land in 1903, and hay in 1904. The land was ploughed 

 in the fall of 1905 and harrowed in the spring of 1906 with the spring-tooth and 

 smoothing harrows, until a fine tilth was made. The seed was sown on May 18th with 

 the seed drill at the rate of 2^ bufJiels per acre. 



This ground was also seeded down to clover and timothy at the rate of 7 lbs. 

 Mammoth Red clover, 3 lbs. Alsike clover and 12 lbs. Timothy seed, per acre, by 

 means of a grass seed attachment to the grain seeder. 



The seed was from selected heads of the previous season's crop, cut from the 

 various plots at harvest time. 



No fertilizer was used on these plots this season. The grain started well as did 

 also the grass seed, but owing to the extreme drought through July and August, the 

 grain ripened prematurely. The straw was fairly stiff, but showed a considerable 



