September, 1921 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



17 



not be pulverized too mucli for fear of 

 causing drifting. If one has any consider- 

 able amount of row crops to care for, it 

 will pay to get a two horse cultivator. It 

 can be manipulated to much better ad- 

 vantage than a one horse implement, al- 

 thougii the latter is needed for cultivating 

 alleys between plots. 



Harvesting. — A five foot binder is the 

 most convenient size for plot harvesting. 

 It can be pulled by one team of horses and 

 the space between bull wheel and sickle is 

 such that no injury will come to the next 

 plot when cutting out the first round. 



Threshing. — In selecting a threshing ma- 

 chine some of the main points to keep in 

 mind are first to get one that is easily 

 cleaned and easily accessible. Th^re should 

 be a slide under the cylinder to be re- 

 moved whenever the variety is changed. A 

 canvass to catch straws and other mat- 

 erial at the head of the machine is need- 

 ed. For ordinary plot work the 20 inch 

 machine is most satisfactory. For nursery 

 rows, a special nursery thresher, consisting 

 of a cylinder and fan but no sieves, should 

 be provided. 



Weighing. — If no wagon scale is avail- 

 able for weighing grain and straw before 

 threshing, the same purpose is easily ac- 

 complished by providing a weighing box 

 for an ordinary platform scale. This 

 scale may well be anchored to a stone boat 

 and moved when necessary. If care is 

 taken to adjust the threshing machine to 

 do clean work, the grain may be weighed 

 and the test weight per bushel determined 

 at the machine. This method conserves 

 time and it is well worth while to make an 

 effort to put the grain through reasonably 

 clean. 



Cfire of the Seed Grain. — After the seed 

 is taken to the seed house it should be 

 cleaned, recleaned and sampled. The sam- 

 ples should be tested immediately for ger- 

 mination and any lots which do not show 

 good germinating power should be discard- 

 ed, except that some may "be retained for 

 continued experiments. A two year's sup- 

 ply of seed for the station should first be 

 set aside and then the remainder of the 

 seeds may be invoiced and listed for dis- 

 tribution. All seeds of a given crop should 

 be grouped and then arranged within the 

 group either alphabetically or by acces- 



sion numbers, so that any lot of seed may 

 be located without loss of time. 



Care of the Label Stakes 



All label stakes .should be brouglit in, in 

 the fall and carefully piled or laid awav in 

 an orderly manner. Then during winter 

 they may be easily checked over and any 

 missing ones may be replaced. A consider- 

 able saving of labor can be had bv stan- 

 dardizing the stakes for different ^purpo- 

 ses. Foi- example, stakes for one tenth 

 acre and larger plots may be five inches 

 m width, those for .smaller plots three or 

 four inches and those for nursery rows 

 two inches. In nursery row work, it is suf- 

 ficient to stake 'every fifth row. Thus the 

 stakes for nursery work will be numbered 

 0, 10, 15, 20, etc. 



Records of Experimental Work 



The main product of an experimental 

 farm is information. This information of 

 course must be based on records. For that 

 reason the records are the vital crop of the 

 experimental farm, just as trulv as the 

 crops themselves are vital to- a commer- 

 cial farm. I have known of so many thou- 

 sands of dollars worth of experimental 

 work going to waste because of unsvstematic 

 or inadequate records, that this need has 

 been deeply impressed on my mind. I 

 have known field superintendents who put 

 the work of the season through with the 

 greatest care and accuracy onlv to fall 

 down in the matter of reeoVds. Then too, 

 the offices should be so arranged that the 

 results may be quickly and easilv sum- 

 marized at the close of each season, *^so that 

 they will be available to teachers and ex- 

 tension lecturers. In other words, the ex- 

 periment station's office should be run with 

 the same efficiency and "up-to-dateness" 

 as the office of a live bank. On account 

 of the experiment stations being public 

 institutions, this is not ahvays possible, 

 and all too often an experiment station of- 

 fice becomes the repository of infinitely 

 valuable information, but known to no 

 man, because it has never been properly di- 

 gested, due to lack of a sufficient office 

 force. 



However, mucli can be done by arrang- 

 ing the records in s.^-stematic form and fn 

 such shape tliat they may be kept up to 



