The interest that attaches to beet growing in Iowa induced this station to conduct an experiment embracing conditions common to this industry by the farmer. Seed of German (Klein Wanzlebener) and French (Dippes Vilmorin) varieties were obtained from the Department of Agriculture; also a French variety called Desprez from Oxnard Bros., Grand Island, Nebraska. The ground selected was a piece of fall plowing adjoining timber. Some of it had been recently cleared. The piece comprised the following varieties of soil: Upland, sandy loam, low rich loam, medium sandy loam, timber clay loam, and stiff timber clay, all comparatively new. In order to ascertain the best time to plant sugar beets we begun April 15 and planted once each week, until May 25. We also desired to ascertain what benefit, if any, would be derived from fertilizing. Lime was used. A commercial fertilizer containing ammonia, phosphoric acid, and potash, valued especially for sugar cane in the South, was used; also ammoniated super-phosphate.

With a view to ascertaining what varieties of oats are best adapted to our soil and climate, eleven of the most promising 'varieties that could be obtained were grown for a comparative test as to yield, quality and ability to withstand attacks of rust and other diseases. The ground used was a piece of fall plowed corn ground, harrowed once before sowing and twice afterward. The soil was sandy loam and had been under cultivation for a number of years. The seeding was done early, April 8th and 10th, and the soil was too wet to admit of the use of a cultivator.

The proposition made in Bulletin No. 12 for an extensive investigation of the possibilities of sugar beet culture in this state, to be made jointly by the farmers of the state and the chemical section of the station, has resulted in the work whose numerical data are reported in this article.

The results here recorded are almost wholly those obtained in the laboratory. The information furnished by the growers regarding the character of the soil in which the beets were grown and its treatment before planting and during growth of the crop, must be brought into condensed form before it can be of much value to the public, (even if it then be), and as it will take considerable time to do this, that portion of our report is reserved for a future bulletin.

The losses that occur annually to our farmers from the drying up of their pastures in July, August, and September, induced us to grow a few acres of green feed, and ascertain to what extent such feed, of different kinds, can be had from an acre of land; how much a cow requires of each kind, and the effect of such feeding on quantity and quality of milk, compared with well watered, well shaded, good blue grass pastures.

Our dairies are mostly idle because the cows have gone dry. and the cows have gone dry because their pastures have failed and provision was not made on a large majority of farms to furnish them with something on which they could give milk. A succession of dry summers has regularly shortened our pastures, and made cows unprofitable, when all the elements of growth are present except moisture, or an arrangement of different crops sown at different times so that some one may always be at its best for cutting for green feed.