26 
COLORADO EXPERIMENT STATION 
cultivation, and when the dry land farmer can afford the teams and 
the implements, one man can handle large areas and reduce the cost 
per acre for raising so low that even a small yield is profitable. 
One man and three heavy horses with a single lister can prepare 
the ground and plant eight acres a day. Following the lister with 
a smoothing harrow has never seemed to the writer to be profitable, 
although generally recommended. About all the harrow does is to 
drag trash on to the rows. 
For the first three cultivations, one man driving four heavy 
horses on a disc harrow can cultivate twenty acres a day, straddling 
alternate rows, and each cultivation straddling the row that was on 
the outside the previous cultivation. Guards are needed to protect 
the corn when small. One man driving four heavy horses to a three- 
row lister cultivator for the first three cultivations can handle well 
thirty acres daily. With both the disc harrow and the lister cultiva¬ 
tor, the corn should be laid by with an ordinary corn cultivator. The 
crop can be harvested at the rate of seven acres a day with a three- 
horse corn harvester. 
Wheat is the cash crop of the Plains, but fails too often to be 
depended upon to meet living expenses. It is safe to calculate on at 
least two failures each five years. Sometimes there will be failures for 
two or three years in succession, and then as many paying crops. It 
is probable that in many sections the greatest profit could be made by 
alternating summer fallow with years of cropping. 
The ground should be plowed early for wheat, and each half day’s 
plowing harrowed before the teams leave the field. After plowing, 
the land should be worked with a sub surface packer and then har¬ 
rowed frequently. Wheat needs a shallow firm seed bed, very mellow 
above the seed. 
Turkey red is the variety preferred for fall seeding, and Kub¬ 
anka Durum for spring seeding. Early seeding is usually necessary 
to secure a good yield. The seed should be heavy and well graded 
and sown with a drill. 
In the spring, if the ground is loose, run over it with a sub surface 
packer. If the ground is firm so that many plants are not loosened, 
harrow across the drill rows. Begin harrowing as early as the 
ground will work well, and continue, at intervals of ten days, until 
the plants shade the ground. 
When wheat, after heading, begins to burn up from drought, it 
may be cut for hay and makes a good feed for horses and dairy cows. 
Barley requires a short season and a good supply of moisture 
for early growth. It should be seeded with a drill as early in the 
spring as the danger from severe frosts is over. Barley is more 
sensitive to frost than either wheat or oats, but if the ends only of the 
leaves are killed, the plants are not hurt. Often the moisture re¬ 
leased when the frost goes out of the ground is nearly sufficient for 
barley up to heading time, when the seed is sown early. 
