CEREALS ON THE BELLE FOURCHE EXPERIMENT FARjVt. H 



frost was recorded in. 1919 on June 1, while the earliest autumn 

 frost was observed in 1910 on August 26. The average frost-free 

 period was 126 days, but this has varied from 93 days in 1910 to 

 145 days in 1917. The frost-free period is long enough to permit 

 full maturity of all adapted varieties of small grains at Newell. 



EXPERIMENTAL METHODS. 



PREPARATION OF THE LAND. 



Most of the cereals on dry land were sown on either summer fallow 

 or corn ground. Stubble land was usually plowed 6 to 8 inches deep 

 with a disk plow in the fall and left rough over winter. Corn 

 ground was not disturbed until spring, when it usually was double 

 disked and harrowed before seeding. The fall-plowed fallow was 

 not cultivated in the spring until weeds and volunteer grains began 

 to grow, but after this time was kept bare throughout the season 

 by the use of the disk or spring-tooth harrow. Owing to the tend- 

 ency toward soil blowing early in the spring, which seemed to in- 

 crease each year after the virgin sod had decayed, it became neces- 

 sary to conduct most of the experiments on cornland. Yields of 

 grain on summer-fallowed land were more certain and somewhat 

 higher than with other methods of preparation, but were less profit- 

 able than on corn ground because of the larger expense for tillage. 

 All of the experiments with winter wheat on the dry land were con- 

 ducted on fallow. 



PLAT EXPERIMENTS. 



Nearly all experiments except those in the breeding nurseries and 

 the preliminary varietal experiments were conducted in field plats. 

 These plats in 1908, 1909, and most of them in 1910 were 2 by 8 rods 

 in size, containing one-tenth of an acre. The plats were separated 

 by 5-foot alleys, and the road between each series of plats and the 

 next was either 16.5 or 20 feet wide. 



Most of the experiments in 1911 and all of those in 1912 and there- 

 after were in plats made by sowing a single drill width across an 

 8-rod series. As the drill was 6 feet wide, this gave a plat of one 

 fifty-fifth of an acre in area. The alleys between these plats have 

 been 19.2 inches in width. By the use of plats and alleys of these 

 dimensions it was possible to sow five plats within the area formerly 

 ^occupied by a tenth-acre plat. As the plants draw considerable mois- 

 ture and plant food from the alleys, it has been thought fair to con- 

 sider these ^-acre plats as fiftieth-acre plats in computing acre yields. 



REPLICATION OF PLATS. 



In 1908, 1909, and 1910, when the experiments were conducted on 

 tenth-acre plats, there was only a single plat of each variety. Check 



