Get the barley in and watch for the overflow rather than to fear it. An overflow for 48 hours would give you the greatest crop you ever saw, unless it should be in a settling basin and the water forced to escape by evaporation. From your description we judge that this is not so and that the land clears itself quickly from an overflow. Depth of sowing depends upon the character and condition of the soil - the lighter and drier the deeper. By all means use a drill if the soil is dry on the surface. Short rainfall makes the advantage of drill seeding most conspicuous. On the University Farm 22 trials gave an average gain of over 10 per cent in yield. The difference would be much greater in a dry year; it might be 25 per cent greater, possibly, and save high-priced seed at the same time, as about 90 pounds of seed per acre will do, instead of 120 pounds broadcast, in accordance with the approved heavy seeding practice on the river lands. Barley and Alfalfa. I have some alfalfa which is a poor stand. Can I disc it up heavily and seed in some barley for winter pasture? You can get barley into your alfalfa as you propose, but you should not seed until fall. The more barley you get into your alfalfa, however, the less alfalfa you will have afterward. If you want to improve your afalfa, keep everything else out of the field and help the plants by regular irrigations during the balance of the growing season. Beets and Potatoes. Which is the best for dairy cows, plain red mangels or a cross between these and sugar beets? Can you suggest a more profitable variety of potato than the Oregon Burbank? If you can get a cross which gives you more tonnage than a mangel and a higher nutritive content you would have something better to grow. The first point you have to determine by growing the two side by side and weighing the product; the nutritive value of each will have to be determined by chemical analysis. Until these determinations are actually made a comparison of desirability is nothing but conjecture. There are several other potatoes which are sometimes more profitable here and there for early crop when grown in an early locality. If you are not in an early locality you are obliged to produce for the main crop, and nothing, to our knowledge, sells as well as the Burbank, if you get a good one. Beets for Stock. Will sugar beets grow on black alkali land? How many pounds of seed per acre should be used and when is it time for sowing in the San Joaquin valley? Which kind would be best for cows?