The wild flowers and native grasses along railroad right-of-ways and in some fence rows gives us a hint of the native Iowa vegetation that greeted early settlers. Iowa has four virgin prairie reserves. A "flowering timetable" gives a preview of the sights in store for visitors.

Brief reports of research at your experiment station at Iowa State University. This month's report gives the annual insect survey and the corn rootworm survey, reports a study of yield capacity of Iowa soils, and describes crown rust damage on oats.

"Farm machinery is getting bigger."

Survey reports use of custom work and range of prices paid. Data is summarized by nine crop reporting distrcits. The average rate, most frequent rate, and the range of rates are given for 38 different kinds of custom work.

Only 20 percent of the soybean seed sampls from a three-county survey could be classified as good seed. Weed seed and varietal contamination was high. Most soybean seed was homegrown or bought from a neighbor.