SOEGHUM VARIETIES FOR THE GREAT PLAINS. 5 



tonio, Tex., was only 2* feet high and was fully mature two weeks 

 in advance of the general crop of feterita. It has not fully retained 

 either its dwarfness or its earliness, but seems each succeeding year to 

 be nearer the type of ordinary feterita, so that rigid selection appears 

 necessary to maintain its distinctiveness. 



Description. — Stems medium to slender, one-half to five-eighths of an inch in 

 diameter, 4* to 5A feet tall, slightly sweet, scarcely juicy, usually with but 

 few tillers, and only occasional branches ; leaves 9 to 10, averaging 2 to 2i 

 inches broad and 18 to 20 inches long ; head ovoid to ellipsoidal, erect, 

 medium compact, 3 inches in diameter, 6 to 7 inches long, usually well filled, 

 exserted 4 inches above the upper leaf sheath ; seeds circular in outline, slightly 

 flattened, large, white, the upper two-thirds exposed from the glume, shatter- 

 ing rather easily ; glumes ovate, black, slightly pubescent, not awned. 



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Fig. 3. — The first cutting of the two new varieties of feterita at Chillicothe, Tex., in 

 1914. Dwarf feterita (at the left) and Improved feterita (at the right). Plats 

 planted on April 21. Photographed July 20. 



Dwarf feterita in its present form has a rather more slender stalk 

 than ordinary feterita, and the head is a trifle^ smaller. It ripens 

 about 4 days earlier, the growing season averaging 88 to 96 

 days, but except for the size of the plant, the length of the growing 

 season, and its greater uniformity there is no difference between it 

 and ordinary feterita. As is also the case with Dwarf hegari, two 

 seed crops of Dwarf feterita can sometimes be harvested in one season 

 (fig. 4). This variety of feterita would seem to be of value as an 

 insurance against drought. At Amarillo, Tex., in 1913, when prac- 

 tically all the kafirs and milos were failures, this variety headed out 

 at a height of 24^ to 3 feet and made a grain yield of 15 bushels per 

 acre when ordinary Blackhull kafir under exactly similar conditions 

 produced hardly a head (fig. 5). 



