This is ascribed by
Senator Barnes to the very dry winter, though it is probable that
the soil was not sufficiently well stored with moisture to carry the
crop through. The farm was plowed again in the spring of 1888, and
another crop sown in September of the same year. In the summer of
1889, 22-1/2 bushels of wheat were harvested to the acre. Encouraged
by this good crop Mr. Barnes allowed a volunteer crop to grow that
fall and the next summer harvested as a result 15-1/2 bushels of
wheat to the acre. The table shows that only one crop smaller than
this was harvested during the whole period of nineteen years,
namely, in 1903, when the same thing was done, and one crop was made
to follow another without an intervening fallow period. This
observation is an evidence in favor of clean summer fallowing. The
largest crop obtained, 28.9 bushels per acre in 1902, was gathered
in a year when the next to the lowest rainfall of the whole period
occurred, namely, 11.41 inches.
The precipitation varied during the nineteen years from 10.33 inches
to 18.46 inches. The variation in yield per acre was considerably
less than this, not counting the two crops that were grown
immediately after another crop.
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