2 BULLETIN 33, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



experiments have been conducted principally with spring varieties 

 of wheat, oats, and barley, but some work has also been done with 

 winter wheat and rye, spring rye, emmer, fla'x, proso, and grain 

 sorghum. 



The yearly reports of the cooperative cereal investigations at the 

 Dickinson substation have been included in the annual reports of 

 the substation 1 for the years 1908 to 1910. Most of the experi- 

 ments reported upon in this bulletin were begun during that period. 

 The work had not progressed far enough in 1910 to justify a sum- 

 mary of the results. With the results of seven years' experiments 

 now available, it seems desirable to summarize them and to draw 

 such conclusions as they appear to w T arrant. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBSTATION. 



It is believed that the results obtained at the Dickinson substation 

 are applicable to only a portion of the northern Great Plains region. 

 That section lying west and south of the Missouri River in North 

 Dakota and including the eastern portion of Dawson and Custer 

 Counties in Montana has conditions very similar to those at Dickin- 

 son. The rainfall decreases southward into South Dakota and is 

 so limited in some places that dry farming as now practiced is not 

 profitable. A comparison of the climate of any locality in this 

 section with that of Dickinson will aid greatly in determining to 

 what degree the Dickinson results may be applied. In order to per- 

 mit such a comparison, a detailed description of the substation is 

 here given, together with data on the amount and distribution of 

 rainfall and other climatological factors under which the experi- 

 ments were conducted. 



LOCATION. 



The Dickinson substation is located 1^ miles northwest of the city 

 of Dickinson, near the center of Stark County, N. Dak., in the south- 

 western portion of the State. It comprises 160 acres, which, with 

 the exception of one rather high butte, is gently rolling land. The 

 elevation is approximately 2,500 feet above sea level. The topog- 

 raphy about Dickinson is that of a broken prairie, fairly typical 

 of western North Dakota or that part of the State west of the Mis- 

 souri River which is known as the old (preglacial) landscape of 

 North Dakota. The flat tops of the buttes and table-lands have 

 been going through the process of erosion since before the glacial 

 period. 



During the past decade this section, comprising approximately 

 12,500,000 acres, has passed through a process of transformation 



'North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, Dickinson Sub-Experiment Station, 

 Annual Reports 1-3, 1008-1910. 



