CEREAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE BELLE FOURCHE FARM. 13 
field plats. In many cases the drought has been so severe that all 
the races and varieties failed to mature grain, regardless of their 
ability to evade or resist moderate droughts. 
When work was begun at the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm, 
the best crops and varieties for that section were fairly well known. 
It seemed, therefore, that the best plan in crop improvement was to 
select from these few varieties rather than from many which might 
prove to be unadapted. As the better varieties were for the most 
part unselected, this line of work seemed to be specially promising. 
It appeared that isolation of these types and a study of their char- 
acteristics and values ought to precede attempts to improve them by 
hybridization. Accordingly, in 1908, several hundred selections 
were made from winter wheat, spring durum wheat, spring common 
wheat, and oats. These were mainly from Turkey, Kharkof, and 
Crimean winter wheat, Kubanka durum wheat, and Sixty-Day and 
Kherson oats. Additional selections from these and other varieties 
were made in subsequent years. 
NURSERY METHODS. 
Single ‘heads were selected from the field plats, the aim being to 
obtain as many types as possible. Each head was described carefully 
before it was thrashed. The seeds from each head were then sown 
in a 5-foot row. The number of kernels sown in each row was 
usually 25. The dates of planting, emergence, heading, and ripening 
were recorded, as were such other notes on hardiness, yield, ete., as 
appeared to be desirable. At harvest the rows which seemed to be 
especially undesirable were discarded, but in all cases at least one 
selection of each type was retained for further study. Most of these 
races which were retained were sown with an ordinary grain drill 
in 60-foot rows in 1910 and succeeding seasons. As far as possible, 
replicate plantings have been made, but loss of seed in unfavorable 
seasons and lack of land and labor have made impossible as frequent 
replication as has seemed desirable. 
INTERPRETATION OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS. 
The best variety or method of culture is the one which, on the 
average, will produce the highest yield of grain of the greatest value at 
the least cost. It is seldom that a single variety or method will fulfill 
all these requirements for all seasons. Usually one will give the best 
results one season, another the second, and perhaps still another the 
third. The best method or variety, presumably, is that one which 
gives the best average during a series of years, provided the seasons 
are representative. In actual practice, however, the problem is more 
complicated than would appear from this statement. The variation 
