This bulletin tools and methods of tilling which can help reduce or control soil blowing and soil erosion on farms in the northern Great Plains of the United States. Among the crops discussed with relation to tilling methods are beans, corn, sorghum, potatoes, alfalfa, and sweet clover.

"The information given in this bulletin should enable farmers in the Great Plains and Western States to select from the more common species of grasses some one or more suited to their needs [for soil and water conservation]. Common harvesting equipment and farm machinery can be adapted to the proper handling of native grasses. This brings the cost of such work within the means of most farmers." -- p. i. Among the grasses discussed are wheatgrass, buffalo grass, bluestem, grama, Bermuda grass, wild rye, hilaria, Sudan grass, bluegrass, panic grasses, dropseed, and needlegrass.

"Among the most striking manifestations of the destruction of soils and crops by the windstorms of recent years are the gigantic sand dunes that have formed on some of the lighter soils of the Great Plains. Specialists of the Soil Conservation Service who were assigned to a study of the problem have been successful in devising methods by which these immense piles of sand, which have covered cultivated lands and good native sod, can be leveled and stabilized. Of still greater value to the farmers and ranchers in areas subject to this soil shifting are the methods of cultivation and land use that recent study and experiments have revealed as the best means of protection against the formation of dunes. This bulletin is written for the benefit of those farmers and ranchers who are faced with the problem of protecting their lands against possible damage from dune formation of with the more immediate problem of restoring lands that have been made temporarily useless by the invasion of these monstrous wind-blown piles of sand." -- p. i

Revised edition. "This bulletin applies both to the western portions of the United States in which ordinary farm crops are grown largely under irrigation and to western Oregon and Washington where irrigation is not essential for strawberry production but may be profitable. It describes methods practiced in the more important commercial strawberry-growing districts of the West; it aims to aid those persons familiar only with local and perhaps unsatisfactory methods, as well as inexperienced prospective growers. The fundamental principles of the irrigation of strawberries are substantially the same as those of irrigating other crops. Details must necessarily be governed largely by the character of the crop grown. Since strawberries in the humid areas frequently suffer from drought which causes heavy losses in the developing fruit, the information may prove suggestive to many growers in those areas who could install irrigation systems at small expense. This bulletin gives information on soils and their preparation, different training systems, propagation, planting, culture, the leading varieties, harvesting, shipping, and utilization." -- p. ii

"The European corn borer is recognized as a dangerous enemy of the corn crop.... Its eradication is considered economically impossible but it is believed that the injury may be kept at a point so low that little commercial damage will occur during normal seasons. This can be done by using control measures and practices that have proved to be effective.... On some farms some changes in the crops grown and in their sequence will aid materially in controlling the borer and may prove profitable even when borers are not present. The control program for the individual farm should be given consideration at once in order to avoid sudden disturbance of the organization and operation of the farm when control measures do become inevitable. The necessity of concerted effort by all producers in an infested district becomes evident when the life habits of the borer are considered." -- p. ii