WINTER-WHEAT PRODUCTIOlSr AT FORT HAYS STATION. 17 



Corn has averaged 6.3 bushels per acre, and wheat 15 bushels. This 

 is about the average for corn and the same for wheat as the average 

 of wheat on disked corn ground in the green-manure rotations. 



Rotation No. 142 is the same as rotation No. 141, with alfalfa in 

 place of brome-grass. The alfalfa is sown without a nurse crop in 

 the first of the three years of alfalfa. Previous to 1913 not much 

 success attended efforts to obtain a stand of aKalfa. Since that 

 time there has always been a sod to break up, and generally there has 

 been some hay production. The yield of oats has averaged 17.9 

 bushels per acre, which is less than in rotation No. 141 or from most 

 methods by which oats have been raised. Corn has averaged 5 

 bushels per acre, which is next to the lowest yield of corn in this 

 group. The average yield of wheat is 12.2 bushels, which is the low- 

 est of any method except that of late plowing of wheat stubble. 



These plats show clearly that the introduction of sod crops into the 

 rotation will not increase yields, but has, on the contrary, the opposite 

 effect to a degree largely dependent upon the success of the sod crop 

 itself. 



Diligent study has been made of the data from this block of plats 

 to determine whether the averages for the entire period of experi- 

 mentation afforded a correct basis from which to draw conclusions of 

 the relative merits of the different methods and systems of cropping 

 or whether some were having a cumulative effect in increasing or 

 decreasing yields. The yield curves have been smoothed in various 

 ways and the yields have been averaged for different periods and 

 groups of years. Such studies have failed to reveal any changing 

 relations in the yields of the different methods and rotations. 



The evidence from the rotations in this block does not indicate 

 that the farmers are wrong in devoting the large proportion that they 

 do of the cropped acreage to winter wheat. Neither does it indicate 

 that wheat grown following other crops yields more per acre than 

 wheat following wheat, provided the stubble is plowed or otherwise 

 cultivated soon after harvest so as to get the benefit of a fallow dur- 

 ing the summer season between harvest and seeding. 



METHODS OF FALLOW. 



In presenting and considering in the foregoing pages the results on 

 fallow, the method of fallow was not described. The method em- 

 ployed on those plats was what may be designated as the most inten- 

 sive. Cultivation begins with early plowing after harvest. The 

 ground is packed or worked down immediately after plowing and given 

 during the summer and fall the cultivation necessary to prevent the 

 growth of vegetation. The cultivation is in fact the same as early 

 plowing to be sown to wheat. In the spring cultivation is continued. 

 The ground is replowed in June and cultivation continued through 



