WHEAT, OATS, AND BARLEY IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 
maturing varieties as well as early or late seeding. The whole ques- 
tion depends upon the time of occurrence of the hot wind or the high 
evaporation. Thus, some seasons are favorable to early-maturing and 
some to late-maturing kinds. A 10-year average shows little differ- 
ence between the yields of good early and good late varieties. The 
hot winds have sometimes occurred during the last week in June, in- 
juring early varieties, while in other seasons they have occurred dur- 
ing the last half of July, thus injuring the late varieties. Only once 
during the 10-year period (in 1911) have they been so serious as to 
totally destroy the cereal crops at the western substations. 
zof=. 
L SSS THAA/ /5/a/. /s TO SOW. 2o TO 25/M AfOfiS THAN 25 /A/ 
Fig. 1.— Map of South Dakota, showing the average annual precipitation in inches and 
the location of the agricultural experiment station and substations. 
The monthly, seasonal, and annual rainfall by years at the stations 
at Brookings, Highmore, Eureka, and Cottonwood, S. Dak., are 
shown in Table I, with averages for the periods for which records are 
reported and a summary of these averages. 
Table I shows that the average seasonal rainfall at Brookings for 
the five months from April 1 to August 31 is 15.63 inches, or 68 per 
cent of the annual precipitation. June has been the month of great- 
est rainfall, with May ranking next in order. There have been two 
seasons when drought conditions occurred, 1904 and 1910; 1908 was 
the year of greatest rainfall. In 1903 the cereal crops at Brookings 
were destroyed by hail, a fact not shown in Table I. In brief, there 
have been seven good and three poor crop years in the 10-year period 
from 1903 to 1912. 
