358 THE SMALL GRAINS 



By determinations of soil moisture at different dates, 

 Burr (1914, pp. 39-42) has shown that moisture is con- 

 served by disking stubble following the binder, if there is 

 sufficient water in the soil after harvest to start weeds. 



Listing is now often practiced in the middle Great 

 Plains as a preparation for winter wheat, and appears to 

 give good results. In double listing, the ridge formed by 

 the first listing is split a month later by the same machine. 

 After listing, the ridges are worked down with a culti- 

 vator and then by other implements, as may be necessary 

 to keep down the weeds, until seeding time. 



The practice of drilling winter grain in standing corn 

 without any preparation has been mentioned (375). 



386. Preparation of the land for spring seeding. - 

 Some years ago there was a common impression through- 

 out this area that spring seeding should always be done 

 on fall plowing. Results of recent investigations do not 

 as a rule support this idea. In the experiments of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture previously dis- 

 cussed, spring plowing for spring wheat gave average re- 

 sults at fourteen stations exactly the same as those for 

 fall plowing. Spring plowing for oats was slightly better 

 than fall plowing, as an average for all stations ; but fall 

 plowing at Hays, Kansas, and stations south of there, 

 gave better yields than spring plowing, while the reverse 

 was true at stations north of Hays. For barley, there was 

 little difference in the general average of results between 

 fall and spring plowing, but the 4 most southern stations 

 had slightly better yields after fall plowing. Grace 

 (1915, pp. 14-15) concludes that, in eastern Colorado, to 

 plow in the fall or spring depends upon the further ques- 

 tion whether a greater quantity of water will be accumu- 

 lated by snow in the standing stubble than will be 



