190 NORTHEAST EXPERIMENT FARM. 
dry sections and will not be apt to yield as well here as Fife 
or Blue Stem. 
Barley.—As barley cannot be profitably raised for export 
in this section, for much the same reasons as apply to wheat, 
its principle use is as a feed for hogs. The station has tested 
some eighteen varieties, of the two rowed and six rowed 
barleys for yield. The six rowed kinds prove to be the 
heaviest yielders. Manshury, one of the best, averages for 
seven years 24.9 bushels, while Champion of Vermont, the 
best two rowed barley, gives 21.6 bushels. Omitting the 
last three years, in which the tests were interfered with by 
unfavorable conditions, these averages are respectively 30.7 
bushels and 25.4 bushels. For the four years 1896 to 1899 
inclusive all the varieties tested averaged 24.6 bushels. Three 
crops were upon old ground, and the fourth was injured by 
water. The best yield was obtained in a field test in 1898, 
on new land broken in 1896 and planted in 1897 to squash. 
The ground was fall plowed and yielded 41 bushels per acre. 
In 1900 barley sown about May 1st suffered from 
drought, yielding from 13 to 17 bushels, while that sown 
later, or on May 15th, received sufficient benefit from late 
rains to mature a crop of 27 bushels. In 1901, the plots 
sown on low ground were drowned out, yielding 12 bushels, 
and a field on higher and lightersoil gave 25 bushels per acre. 
The field chosen in 1902 for the barley varieties gave in- 
teresting results. This field has been cropped since 1894, 
and had borne three crops of potatoes, two of grain and one 
of cornfodder. It was manured in 1898—’99 for the corn. 
In 1900 it was seeded down, but being a droughty field and 
in poor condition the dry weather burned out the grass. In 
the fall rve was sown, and in1901 this was pastured off and 
corn planted which was also eaten off by sheep. The land 
was fall plowed and sown to barley. A dry spell after the 
grain was up, thinned out the straw on all the grain fields 
but later favorable weather matured a large crop of oats 
and wheat. But the barley on this field did not get moisture 
enough to form its straw and the crop averaged 8.4 bushels 
per acre. Clover seed sown with the grain flourished amaz- 
ingly with the thin stand of grain and later rains, and fur- 
nished the means both to bring up the fertility and supply 
