FALL SOWING 215 



dry cold or protracted periods of intense cold, destroy 

 the vitality of the seed and young root system. Con- 

 tinuous but moderate cold is not ordinarily very 

 injurious. The liability to winter-killing is, there- 

 fore, very much greater wherever the winters are 

 open than in places where the snow covers the ground 

 the larger part of the winter. It is also to be kept in 

 mind that some varieties are very resistant to winter- 

 killing, while others require well-covered winters. 

 Fall sowing is preferable wherever the bulk of the 

 precipitation comes in winter and spring and where 

 the winters are covered for son:ie time with snow and 

 the summers are dry. Under such conditions it is 

 very important that the crop make use of the mois- 

 ture stored in the soil in the early spring. Wherever 

 the precipitation comes largely in late spring and 

 summer, the arguments in favor of fall sowing are 

 not so strong, and in such localities spring sowing is 

 often more desirable than fall sowing. In the Great 

 Plains disti'ict, therefore, sj^ring sowing is usually 

 recommended, though fall-sown crops nearly always, 

 even there, yield the larger crops. In the inter- 

 mountain states, with wet winters and dry summers, 

 fall sowing has almost wholly replaced spring sowing. 

 In fact, Farrell reports that upon the Nephi (Utah) 

 substation the average of six years shows about 

 twenty bushels of wheat from fall-sown seed as against 

 about thirteen bushels from spring-sown seed. Under 

 the California climate, with wet winters and a winter 



