4 BULLETII^ 1343, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
was designated as Iowa No. 103. From 1906 to 1909 it was grown 
in the nursery, and in 1909, because of its nursery record, the first 
increase plat was grown. In 1910 it was placed in the plat varietal 
experiments. The variety was first distributed to Iowa farmers 
in 1913, distribution being continued by the Iowa Agricultural Ex- 
periment Station until 1917. From this wide distrilDution in Iowa 
the Albion spread to adjoining States and is to-day the leading 
early variety in Iowa and Illinois, although it is being replaced to 
some extent by the higher yielding selection lowar, which is dis- 
cussed elsewhere in this bulletin. 
In 1919 Iowa grew slightly more than 1,000,000 acres of the Albion 
variety. Over 300.000 acres were eTown in Illinois. The States 
Fig. 2. — Harvesting lowar oats on the Agronomy Farm of the Iowa Agricultural 
Experiment Station 
of Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin 
each grew from 11,000 to 19,000 acres in that year. At the then 
average farm price of 72 cents a bushel for oats and an average gain 
in yield of 3 bushels per acre p. 9), Iowa alone received a net 
gain of more than $2,000,000 from this variety in that year. ^ The 
distribution of Albion in 1919 is shown in Figure 4. 
A more recent survey made by the Iowa Agricultural Experiment 
Station shows that in 1924 Albion was grown on 23.2 per cent 
(1,332,608 acres) of Iowa's total oat acreage of 5,744,000 acres, as 
compared with 8.7 per cent (499,728 acres) for Kichland, 13.5 per 
cent (775,440 acres) for lowar, and 0.8 per cent (45,952 acres) for 
logren. These figures indicate that the Albion has been well re- 
ceived by the farmers of Iowa. 
