GROWING GRAIN CROPS IN DRY AREAS 217 



drain on the fertility, and also on the humus, without 

 any replenishing of either because of the increase in weed 

 life which is sure to follow, and because of the increase 

 of insect life and of fungous diseases that invariably 

 results. When the precipitation is about 15 inches, one 

 crop of winter wheat may be grown in alternation with 

 summer-fallow for a number of successive years how 

 many, will depend on the store of plant food in the soil. 

 The increase of weed and insect life should not obtain in 

 this case, as in the former, but it depletes fertility and 

 humus very materially, and because of this it is not to be 

 commended, notwithstanding the fact that for several 

 years there may be no diminution in the yields. 



The aim should be therefore, in dry areas, to make 

 winter wheat follow the bare-fallow or a cultivated crop, 

 as corn, the wheat being drilled in between the corn rows 

 in order to get it sown in season. In areas where the win- 

 ters are cold, the winter wheat must have protection, as 

 in the Dakotas. In such areas it may follow: (1) on the 

 summer-fallow on which a small amount of corn has been 

 drilled very late and left uncut to furnish protection ; (2) 

 between standing corn which is cut later, a few rows of 

 bare stalks being left standing every few rods to furnish 

 protection; (3) amid the stalks of some dwarfish kind 

 of corn from which the ears have been removed in some 

 way, and (4) when drilled in amid the stubbles, prefer- 

 ably of a barley crop because of the early harvesting of 

 the same. Winter wheat is sometimes grown after a 

 crop of winter wheat or other small grain, the land being 

 plowed or disced. The practise is not a good one. If 

 the autumn is dry, the crop will fail for lack of proper 

 germination. Spring wheat should as a rule be grown on 

 fallow land or on land that has produced a cultivated 

 crop. It will follow a cultivated crop more frequently 

 than winter wheat, as the cultivated crop is not har- 



