2 BULLETIN" 498, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cultural Experiment Station and to Sherman County for their share 

 in obtaining the cooperative results reported in this publication. 



Some preliminary work was done in 1!)1(), but most of the experi- 

 ments were not started until 1911. The investigational work at 

 Moro comprises tests of methods of production and improvement of 

 cereals, including crop rotation and tillage. This bulletin deals only 

 with the varietal tests of spring-sown cereals, including wheat, 

 emmer, oats, barley, and grain sorghums. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE STATION. 



The Eastern Oregon Dry-Farming Substation is located in the 

 southwestern part of the Columbia Basin, 1 near Moro, in Sherman 

 County, Oreg. Eastern Oregon, as the term is used locally, refers to 

 all that portion of the State east of the Cascade Mountains. Sherman 

 County lies along the Columbia River, the northern border of the State. 

 It is really about midway of the State from east to west. Moro is 



Fig. 1. — General view of the station buildings at the Eastern Oregon Dry-Farming Substation, at Moro. 



about 15 miles from the Columbia River, on a branch line of the 

 Oregon- Washington Railroad & Navigation Co. A map of the State, 

 on which the location of the substation is indicated, is shown in 

 figure 2. 



The elevation of the substation is approximately 2,000 feet. The 

 soil and climatic conditions at Moro are typical of a large part of the 

 Columbia Basin. It is believed, therefore, that the results obtained 

 at the substation are applicable in a general way to most of the 

 Columbia Basin, but especially to districts where the prevailing soil 

 type is silt loam and where the annual average precipitation ranges 

 from 9 to 12 inches. 



The substation comprises 233 acres, about 200 of which are till- 

 able. Like most of the Columbia Basin lands, the surface is very 

 rolling, nearly every direction and inclination of slope being repre- 

 sented. On the experimental plats the slopes vary from nearly level 



i For a general description of the Columbia Basin, see nunter, Byron, Farm practice in the Columbia 

 Basin uplands, U. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers' Bui. 294, 30 p., 1907. 



