4 BULLETIN 883, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
THE NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS FIELD STATION AND THE SURROUND- 
ING DISTRICT. 
LOCATION. 
The Northern Great Plains Field Station was located by the Office 
of Dry-Land Agriculture in the summer of 1913 2 miles southwest of 
Mandan, X. Dak., on the table-lands just west of the Missouri River 
and south of the Heart River. 
HISTORY. 
The station is located about 4 miles west of the site of old Fort 
Lincoln, which originally was on the west bank of the Missouri. 
The old Deadwood-Mandan trail runs across the station farm. 
Some of the 1916 flax plats were located across this old trail. 
In this immediate vicinity, on the banks of the Missouri, the early 
Mandan Indians developed an agriculture admirably adapted to 
the district and produced varieties of corn and beans better suited to 
the local conditions than most of the more recent introductions. 
After the conquest of the Indians, the country was utilized for many 
years by cattlemen who grazed large herds of cattle on the free range 
of western South Dakota, western North Dakota, and Montana. 
More recently the country has been settled by homesteaders, many 
of whom have remained on their homesteads while others have let 
their lands lie uncultivated or have sold to men with more capital or 
more determination who have worked out successfully the problem 
of farming under semiarid conditions. Much of this land was granted 
to the transcontinental railroads, and a large acreage of tillable land 
still remains untouched by the plow. 
TOPOGRAPHY. 
The altitude at Mandan is 1,644 feet. The table-land or bench 
land on which the station is located is about 100 feet higher and is 
representative of most of the prairie west of the Missouri River. The 
whole district is known locally as the slope country. It varies from 
slightly to extremely rolling and rises rapidly to the westward. Its 
western extremity is crossed by the Bad Lands of western North Da- 
kota and Montana and the Black Hills of South Dakota. 
SOILS. 
The soils at Mandan are all classified in the Williams loam series. 
They have been derived by the grinding and commingling of rocks 
through glacial action and constitute the predominating soil forma- 
tion in North Dakota. These loams, while of moderately heavy 
texture and compact structure, are friable, easily cultivated, and 
maintain a good condition of tilth. Rains are readily absorbed ex- 
cept on steep slopes, and with the exception of limited areas in which 
the gravel content is high the subsoils are retentive of moisture. 
