26 BULLETIN 1304, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUBE 
thing is to cultivate promptly before any considerable areas are 
involved. Although the cultivation of a "winter- wheat field gives 
the impression at the time that great damage is being done, observa- 
tion at harvest will not confirm the earlier fears. The damage from 
effective cultivation can not be as great as will result from soil 
blowing which is allowed to continue through the spring months. 
If the cultivation or repeated cultivations fail to control the blowing, 
then listing out the field is the last resort. The closeness of the lister 
furrows will depend upon the seriousness of the condition to be met. 
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 
The Akron Field Station, located in northeastern Colorado on clay- 
loam soil at an altitude of approximately 4,600 feet, is typical of a large 
area of the west-central Great Plains. 
The annual precipitation averages 17.95 inches, and during the 
16-year period from 1908 to 1923, inclusive, ranged from 13.44 
to 25 inches. The average is so near the critical point for successful 
crop production that yields are governed very closely by the quantity 
and the distribution of the precipitation preceding and during the 
cropping season. 
Winter wheat is not only one of the best adapted and generally 
most profitable grain crops for this region but is also the most 
responsive to cultural methods. The yield of winter wheat on fallow 
has averaged 19.1 bushels, on disked corn ground 13.5 bushels, and on 
land continuously cropped to wheat and deep fall plowed 10.5 bushels 
per acre. Spring wheat shows no such response to fallow, but follow- 
ing either corn or small grain it averages practically the same as 
winter wheat. As neither the seeding nor the harvest of the two 
conflict, the use of both makes possible the utilization of equipment 
in the growth of a large acreage. 
Barley is the most productive of the feed grains and is also quite 
responsive to cultural treatment. Oats do not produce grain as 
heavily as barley but have a special feed value and also have possi- 
bilities as a hay crop. 
Corn and the sorghums as forage and silage crops are very pro- 
ductive and reasonably sure. They have no total failures. The 
yield of ear corn averages only slightly less than that of barley. 
So far, yields have not been increased by subsoiling or deep tilling. 
The relative value of fall plowing as compared with spring plowing 
of small-grain stubble depends upon the season, but over a series of 
years there was an advantage in favor of the spring plowing. 
The yield of the first crop following green manure is less in compari- 
son with one following fallow. The same lessening of yield results 
from delay in plowing the fallow. The growth of the green-manure 
crop or of weeds on fallow land uses the water in the soil and so defeats 
the object of the fallow. The green manures have not increased the 
yields of the second or third crops following them, nor were any 
cumulative benefits shown as the rotations were repeated. 
Sod crops have not themselves been productive in 6-year rotations, 
and they have served to decrease rather than increase the yields of the 
crops immediately following. 
