UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 1039 
Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 
WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 
Washington, D. C. 
May 5, 1922 
EXPERIMENTS WITH CEREALS ON THE BELLE 
FOURCHE EXPERIMENT FARM. 
By John H. Martin, Agronomist, Office of Cereal Investigations. 
CONTENTS, 
Page. 
The cereal experiments 1 
Description of the field station 2 
Location 2 
History of the region 3 
Soil 4 
Native vegetation 4 
Climatic conditions 5 
Experimental methods 11 
Preparation of the land 11 
Plat experiments 11 
Nursery experiments 12 
Experiments on dry land 13 
Experiments with wheat 13 
Experiments with oats 27 
Experiments with barley 32 
Page. 
Experiments on dry land — Continued. 
Experiments with minor cereals. 36 
Comparison of grain crops 41 
Experiments with flax 42 
Experiments on irrigated land 45 
Experiments with wheat 46 
Experiments with oats 52 
Experiments with barley 56 
Experiments with minor cereals- 59 
Experiments with grain mix- 
tures 62 
Comparison of grain crops 64 
Experiments with flax 65 
Tillage experiments 69 
Summary 70 
THE CEREAL EXPERIMENTS. 1 
The investigations with cereals on the Belle Fourche Experiment 
Farm have consisted chiefly of varietal, rate-of-seeding, date-of- 
seeding, and depth-of-seeding experiments, and the improvement of 
cereal varieties bv the head-selection method. From 1907 to 1911 the 
1 The experiments here reported were conducted on the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm, 
near Newell, S. Dak., during the 13-year period from 1907 to 1919, inclusive. The experi- 
ments were in cooperation with the Office of Western Irrigation Agriculture of the Bureau 
of Plant Industry, by whom the farm is operated. On April 1, 1912, the cooperative 
agreement between the Office of Cereal Investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry 
and the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station was expanded to include the 
work at Newell. Mr. Cecil Salmon was in charge of the experiments from 1907 to 1913, 
inclusive ; Mr. E. M. Johnston and the writer in 1914 ; the writer in 1915, 1916, 1917, 
and part of 1918 ; and Mr. A. D. Ellison in 1919. Valuable assistance during this period 
has been rendered by Mr. Beyer Aune, farm superintendent, and Mr. O. R. Mathews, 
assistant in dry-land agriculture, of the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm. Acknowledg- 
ment is here made of the assistance of those mentioned above. 
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