14 
BULLETIN 498, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
In the experimental plats the -weeds have been destroyed by hand 
hoeing. 
All varieties are carefully rogued to free them from accidental 
mixtures. They are cut with a binder, shocked, and then thrashed 
several weeks later with a small separator run by a gasoline engine. 
The grain from each plat is weighed after thrashing and the bushel 
weight determined. No straw weights have been recorded. The 
rows and small plats are thrashed with a small separator designed 
for that purpose. 
CEREAL EXPERIMENTS. 
SPRING WHEAT. 
From the standpoint of total production in bushels, spring wheat 
is not as important in the Columbia Basin as winter wheat. Con- 
Fig. 8.— Varietal plats of spring grain at the Moro substation, showing summer-fallow land in the fore- 
ground. Photographed July, 1914. 
siderable spring wheat is grown, however, on account of the fact that 
dry weather frequently prevails until so late in the autumn that 
winter wheat can not be sown with safety. Winter wheat is better 
adapted to the present summer-fallow system of grain production 
in the Columbia Basin, because it permits a better distribution of 
farm labor. Winter wheat also usually gives yields somewhat higher 
than those of spring wheat. 
Many wheat varieties, like Pacific Bluestem and Little Club, are 
sown in the Columbia Basin in either the autumn or spring, except 
on the higher elevations. 
VARIETAL EXPERIMENTS. 
Seventy-seven varieties of spring wheats have been tried at the 
substation. Some of these, which did not appear to be at all adapted, 
were discarded after a 2-year trial. New varieties have been added 
from time to time, and 5-year average yields have been obtained for 
