2 BULLETIN 157, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 



fact that the experiments had been conducted during only a brief 

 period and no conclusive results were available. In 1913 a detailed 

 report of varietal and improvement work with cereals was issued. 1 

 The present bulletin presents the results of the cultivation experi- 

 ments with dry-land cereals. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBSTATION. 



A detailed description of the Nephi substation and a full discussion 

 of the climatological data collected there were given in a previous 

 publication; 1 hence, only a brief description of the substation will 

 be given here, and, except in special cases, the climatological factors 

 will not be considered further than to give general averages. 



LOCATION. 



The Nephi substation is located 6 miles south of Xephi, in the 

 eastern part of Juab County, Utah, near the center of the State. 

 It comprises 100 acres of land lying near the top of the north slope 

 of the Levan Ridge, which transversely crosses the Juab Valley. 

 The top of this ridge is approximately 6,000 feet above sea level 

 and about 500 feet higher than the bottom of the valley. When the 

 substation was located in 1903, the Levan Ridge was covered with 

 a dense growth of sagebrush, from 2 to 5 feet in height. Now, 

 dry farming is practiced generally on the ridge and from 150,000 

 to 175,000 bushels of winter wheat are produced annually in the 

 vicinity of the substation. 



SOIL. 



The soil of the substation, like most soils of the Great Basin, is 

 alluvial and very deep. It is reddish brown in color and varies in 

 texture from clay loam to sandy loam, the latter appearing most 

 generally beneath the 4-foot level. Above this level the soil con- 

 tains about 15 per cent of clay. This comparatively high per- 

 centage of clay makes the soil "heavy" and rather dim cult to work 

 under certain conditions. In wet weather it becomes very sticky, 

 while in extremely dry weather that on which a crop has been grown 

 becomes very hard. The preparation of a good seed bed, however, 

 usually is not difficult. 



RAINFALL. 



The average annual precipitation at the Nephi substation for 1898 

 to 1913, inclusive, was 13.4 inches. During this period the annual 

 precipitation was above normal 6 years and below normal 10 years. 

 The wettest year was 1906, with 18.48 inches precipitation; the 

 driest year was 1910, with 9.08 inches. During the progress of the 

 experiments reported herein, the annual precipitation was above 



1 Cardon, P. V. Cereal investigations at the Nephi substation. U. S. Dept. Agr. Bui. 30, 50 p., 9 figs., 

 1913. 



