42 
Description: Although located in the most arid of the Province's soil zone, the 
study area consists primarily of a highly drought-resistant association of soils 
known as Sceptre, and this mixed with Regina and Haverhill associations. Sceptre 
consists of "heavy textured soils developed on uniform clay deposits occupying the 
beds of former glacial lakes''. The topography is primarily "undulating to gently 
rolling" with small scattered patches of "flat ‘to depressional'" alluvium and alkali. 
The altitude varies from about 2,150 to 2, 350 feet above sea level. 
The dominant native upland grasses are grama (Bouteloua), spear- -(Stipa), 
wheat-(Agropyron) and June grass (Koeleria). The area is, however, intensely 
farmed and little ungrazed land, or even pasture, is to be found except on the 
Eston-Brock stretch. On May 15, about 44 percent of the transect area was 
stubble or swath and about 33 percent summer fallow; 7 percent was road ditch, 
7 percent pasture and prairie, 5 percent water and 4 percent buildings and miscell- 
aneous, Wheat, barley and oats are the principal crops grown. The growing 
season at Kindersley is reportedly about 110 days and at Eston 120+. 
Many of this year's sloughs were devoid of vegetation -- being newly-flooded 
areas on summer fallow, stubble or crop. Where emergent vegetation was to be 
found, it was usually sedge (Carex), smartweed (polygonum) or spikerush (Eleocharis! 
Pondweed (Potamogeton) appeared to be the dominant submergent vegetation. 

Spring: Heavy winter snows blanketed the largest over-wintering crop in history. 
A flight over the area on April 1 showed that there was a few sloughs open south of 
Glidden, but snow still covered the land. Snipe Lake was open only along the edges 
as were other large water areas in the district. No waterfowl were seen. A similar 
flight on April 18 showed the larger sloughs to be still partly frozen but snow was 
confined mostly to ditches. Pintail, mallard, baldpate, shoveler, redhead, scaup, 
canvasback and bufflehead were identified as well as 525+ Canada geese, 700+ snow 
and blue geese, and 3, 000+ cranes. 
According to the R.C.M. P., pintails and mallards arrived in numbers between 
April 3 and 5. The rest of April was unseasonably warm and dry so that work on 
the land was in full swing early in May. Between May 15 and June 5, more than 
90 percent of the stubble -- prime nesting cover for pintails and mallards -- was 
either seeded or put to summer fallow on the study area. 
Water Conditions 
In the memory of all farmers interviewed, 1952 saw the highest water in the 
western grasslands; 1919 is apparently the only year that rivaled it. Indicative of 
the situation is an area east of Glidden: dry in the autumn of 1950, it reportedly 
held seventeen feet of water this spring. More detailed data on water areas are 
presented in Table III. From this table it will be seen that the number of water 
areas dropped from 10.7 per square mile in mid-May to 2.3 the first week of 
August. This latter figure, however, consisted mainly of larger areas (10+ acres 
in May ) and, while a few had shrunk significantly by August, many of them closely 
approximated their spring areas and were still above the rims of vegetation which 
apparently marked the 1951 spring levels. In general, the weekly drop was less 
on larger areas; this may be partly due to their larger drainage systems, wherein 
there may be greatér runoff of the summer's precipitation. 
There was apparently sufficient water throughout the season for even the 
latest broods. 
