Corn Growers' Association. 301 



These include only two different types of wheat. The first six 

 varieties named are the hard red winter wheat, the last two are the 

 soft red wheat. Certain types or varieties of wheat are adapted 

 for growing in certain sections of the State. In Eastern Kansas, 

 especially on the bottom lands, the soft red wheat grows well, while 

 in Central and Western Kansas the hard red wheat is most success- 

 fully grown. Variety testing must be more or less local in order 

 to determine which are the best varieties to grow. Yet the general 

 tests made at Manhattan indicate what varieties may be best adapt- 

 ed to certain localities. Much the same work is being done with 

 corn and other crops, with similar results. 



In our tests with oats three varieties out of some thirty tested 

 have given decidedly the larger yields. These are: Sixty-day, 

 Kherson and Red Texas, and these varieties of oats are also proving 

 to be good producers in other parts of the State. Out of some 

 eighty different varieties of corn tested during the last four years, 

 eight or ten varieties may be selected, which are decidedly better 

 than the average, and which have given larger yields, with a better 

 quality of grain than the other seventy varieties. There is no 

 question but that there is a great difference in varieties in their 

 adaptation to different soils and climates, and it should be the pur- 

 pose of the State Experiment Stations, with the help of the farmers 

 and the sub-stations, to determine what are the best producing vari- 

 eties for the State and for the different sections of the State. 



A great deal of this work of variety testing has been done in 

 several states, but usually with very little result. I found, on study- 

 ing up this question recently, that while some states had tested a 

 great number of varieties of standard crops through a long period 

 of years, sometimes as long as ten years, and had finally made a re- 

 port showing that certain varieties were the best producers, that 

 today those varieties were not grown at all in that state. The tests 

 had been made and the seed simply thrown away. Such work has 

 very little value. Just to know that a certain variety is better than 

 another does not help the farmer unless he can get the seed of that 

 variety and plant and grow it. You want some of the seed of that 

 best-producing type of corn, wheat, oats or barley, and it has been 

 my plan at the Kansas Station not only to test varieties, but as soon 

 as I am satisfied that some varieties are better than others, the seed 

 is planted in increased plots and multiplied in quantity, and dis- 

 tributed to the farmers of Kansas at a nominal price. 



Prof. C. W. Burkett, director of the Kansas Experiment Sta- 

 tion, remarked in a recent address that if a pure-bred hog sold for 



