14 BULLETIN 297, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
in soil and in seasons, the importance of weather and soil conditions 
at critical stages of growth, and the variable reaction of varieties 
to seasonal conditions make it difficult to arrive at definite conclusions 
by a study of averages alone. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH WHEAT. 
The experiments with wheat at Newell have included plat and 
nursery tests of both spring and winter varieties. In addition to 
the varietal tests there have been rate-of-seeding experiments with 
spring wheat and date-of-seeding experiments with winter wheat. 
Because there is always a ready market for the grain and its value 
js high in comparison with its bulk, wheat is always an important 
crop in a newly settled district. For that reason the experiments 
with wheat at Newell have been more extensive and of greater popu- 
lar interest than those with any other grain. Considerable effort 
has been devoted to the improvement of varieties by selection. 
SPRING WHEAT. 
Spring wheat is much more commonly grown in western South 
Dakota than winter wheat. There is considerable diversity in 
varieties, for both common and durum wheats are grown. The 
common wheats include representatives of the Fife, bluestem, and 
Preston (bearded Fife) groups. A varietal test of spring wheat 
has been conducted on the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm each 
year since 1908. A rate-of-seeding test with Kubanka durum wheat 
was begun in 1909 and was continued throughout the period here 
discussed. 
VARIETAL TEST OF SPRING WHEAT. 
The spring-wheat varieties included in the tests at Newell are those 
which have given the best results in other dry-land districts, with the 
addition of a few which have been introduced recently from foreign 
countries. Because so many of the poorer ones were eliminated by 
previous tests elsewhere, the varieties grown at Newell do not show 
wide variations in yield. 
Twelve varieties and strains of durum wheat and thirteen of com- 
mon wheat have been grown in plats. In some cases several lots of 
the same variety from different sources have been included in the 
test. Therefore, only 6 varietal names of durum and 10 of common 
wheat are represented by the 25 lots. The annual and average yields 
for all varieties and strains are shown in Table IX. 
As shown in Table IX, good yields of spring wheat were produced 
in 1908, 1909, and 1913, fair yields of some varieties in 1910, and fail- 
ures of practically all varieties in 1911 and 1912. Only five of the 
durum varieties and strains and five of the common varieties have 
been grown during all of the six years (1908-1913). 
