56 WHEAT 



SPREADING STRAW AND PACKING 



The writer prevented the soil from blowing on 

 an eighty acre wheat field at the Fort Hays experi- 

 ment station in western Kansas in the spring of 

 1911, by spreading straw over the field during the 

 winter and packing it into the soil early in the 

 spring with a subsurface packer. The packer 

 pressed the straw into the ground causing it to 

 stand partly on end. This kept the straw from 

 blowing away and served as a protection to the 

 ground, which entirely prevented the soil from 

 drifting on this field in the very severe wind storm 

 of March 26 of that year, notwithstanding the 

 fact that this field was not well covered by the 

 growing wheat which had made little growth in 

 the fall and was therefore inclined to blow. Other 

 fields on the experiment station farm which were 

 not protected with straw did blow badly. 



During the storm referred to, the effect of the 

 straw as a barrier to stop the drifting soil was 

 shown in another field of 160 acres of wheat. In 

 this field, straw had been spread in a narrow strip 

 five or six rods -wide, extending east and west 

 across the field, and had been packed into the 

 soil with the subsurface packer. The north side 

 of the field started to blow and the loose soil 

 was swept south, taking nearly the whole field 

 north of the straw-covered area, but here the 

 drifting soil lodged in the straw and did little harm 

 to the wheat south of this barrier. The subsurface 

 packing alone without the dressing of straw cross- 

 wise of the drill rows early in the spring also had 



