CEOP PEODUCTION IN" THE GEEAT PLAINS AEEA. 5 



length of the period free from frost is more important in the produc- 

 tion of corn than in the production of small grain. Young corn being 

 easily injured by frost, planting must be delayed until there is little 

 further danger from this source. Where the season is short, the crop 

 may be caught by frost hi the fall. This necessitates the use of short- 

 season varieties in a portion of the Great Plains area. 



SOILS OF THE GREAT PLAINS. 



As would naturally be expected in so extensive an area, the soils 

 of the Great Plains present a great diversity; but as it is only that 

 portion of the area which is adapted to dry farming with which these 

 studies deal, all of the alluvial bottoms, the sand hills, the "bad lands," 

 and the rough, broken, and mountainous portions are eliminated. 

 This elimination greatly reduces the diversity of soil types to 

 be considered. The 14 field stations already mentioned were 

 located with a view to having each of them on soil representative 

 of extensive areas. It is believed, therefore, that the soils of these 

 stations represent nearly all of the important soil types to be found 

 in the strictly dry-farming portions of the Great Plains. The con- 

 clusions drawn from experiments conducted at these 14 stations, 

 therefore, should apply to the Great Plains area as a whole, and those 

 from individual stations, or from groups of stations, to extensive sub- 

 divisions of the area. 



Space here will not permit of a detailed discussion of the soils at 

 each station. Brief descriptions of the soils at these stations are 

 given in a bulletin recently published. 1 



CROPS AND CULTURAL METHODS. 



The principal crops under investigation are spring wheat, winter 

 wheat, oats, barley, corn, milo, and kafir. The methods of soil 

 preparation include fall plowing, spring plowing, disking corn stub- 

 ble, subsoiling, green manuring, and summer tillage, and listing for 

 small grain, corn, milo, and kafir. Detailed descriptions of these 

 various methods are given in the publications cited on page 1. 



RESULTS OF METHODS TESTED WITH VARIOUS CROPS. 



In this bulletin a table will be presented for each of the crops con- 

 sidered, the results for milo and kafir being combined in one table. 

 Tin- first part of each table shows the average yields obtained at 

 each station by each method under trial. It also shows the number 

 of yi-iirs ;ind total number of pints used in obtaining the average In 

 the eji.se. of the siinill grains only, the method of seed-bed preparation 



i Bulletin V. B. Dopt. of Agriculture \'o. 214, entitled " sprhu; Wheat in the Great Plains woa: 

 Relation of cultural methods to production," 13 j)., 1915. 



