Please see the [Transcriber’s Notes] at the end of this text.

It is the pleasure of the publishers to present to those who are interested in alfalfa, the man who declined an appointment as United States Senator, that he might continue to direct the affairs of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture in general and of farmers in particular.—Orange Judd Company.

The Book of Alfalfa
HISTORY, CULTIVATION AND MERITS.
ITS USES AS A FORAGE
AND FERTILIZER.

* * * * Spanish clover, such as has
Usurped the Occident and dwells
On Sacramento’s sundown hills,
And all the verdant valley fills
With fragrance sweet and delicate
As wooing breath of woman is.
—Joaquin Miller.

By F. D. COBURN
Secretary Kansas Department of Agriculture.

Illustrated

1912
Orange Judd Company
New York

Copyright, 1906 by
Orange Judd Company

New Revised Edition Copyrighted 1907 by
Orange Judd Company

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the U. S. A.

THERE ARE SOME SILENT SUBSOILERS THAT DO THEIR WORK WITH EASE, AND IN THEIR WAY, MORE EFFECTUALLY THAN ANY TEAM OR PLOW EVER HITCHED. THE CLOVER PLANT IS RIGHTEOUSLY FAMED AS ONE OF THESE, BUT ALFALFA IS ITS SUPERIOR. ITS ROOTS WORK, SUNDAY AS WELL AS SATURDAY, NIGHT AND DAY; THEY STRIKE 5, 10, 15 OR 20 FEET DEEP, MAKING INNUMERABLE PERFORATIONS, WHILE STORING UP NITROGEN, AND WHEN THESE ROOTS DECAY THEY LEAVE NOT ONLY A GENEROUS SUPPLY OF FERTILITY FOR ANY DESIRED CROP, BUT MILLIONS OF OPENINGS INTO WHICH THE AIR AND RAIN OF HEAVEN FIND THEIR WAY, AND HELP TO CONSTITUTE AN UNFAILING RESERVOIR OF WEALTH, UPON WHICH THE HUSBANDMAN CAN DRAW WITH LITTLE FEAR OF PROTEST OR OVERDRAFTS.

“Its long, branching roots penetrate far down, push and crowd the earth this way and that, and thus constitute a gigantic subsoiler. These become an immense magazine of fertility. As soon as cut, they begin to decay and liberate the vast reservoir of fertilizing matter below the plow, to be drawn upon by other crops for years to come.”

The Author’s Foreword

This volume, however strong its statements in favor of alfalfa may appear to those unacquainted with that plant’s productivity and beneficence, is by no means presented as an argument that everyone should raise alfalfa. It is intended rather as a conservative setting forth of what others have found alfalfa to be and do under wide variations of soil, climate, condition and locality; of its characteristics and uses; the most approved methods of its raising and utilization, and the estimates of it by those who have known it most intimately and longest as a farm forage crop and a restorer and renovator of the soil.

The author believes in alfalfa; he believes in it for the big farmer as a profit-bringer in the form of hay, or condensed into beef, pork, mutton, or products of the cow; but he has a still more abiding faith in it as a mainstay of the small farmer; for feed for all his live stock and for maintaining the fertility of the soil.

To avoid the appearance of both special pleading and exaggeration the statements have been guarded, and many of a laudatory nature, which fully authenticated facts seemed to justify, have been omitted, as neither the author nor the publishers have desire or willingness to extol unduly a commodity so little needing it as that of which the volume treats. Alfalfa’s strongest commendations are invariably from those who know it best; none are incredulous who know it well, and none have grown it but wished their acreage increased.

F. D. COBURN.

Topeka, Kansas.
1906

Introductory
BY
Former Governor W. D. Hoard, of Wisconsin
Editor Hoard’s Dairyman

I am exceedingly gratified by the preparation and publication of a new and larger work devoted to the subject of Alfalfa. The earlier effort by Mr. Coburn upon the same subject was in many respects a classic, and I am sure farmers everywhere will now hail with joy the advent of a kindred work by him, still more complete.

It is strange, this late awakening all over the Union and in Canada to the feeding value and possibilities of this marvelous plant. Again, it is wonderful to me that within a few years farmers everywhere are being compelled to revise their judgment as to their chances of success with it. A large correspondence on this subject comes to me from every state in the Union and the provinces of Canada, and success is being had in the growing of alfalfa where not more than three years ago it was deemed impossible to make it live. Of course the question of growing alfalfa contains a thousand or more chances for good or poor judgment. Men who are not too conceited, too ignorant or too stubborn to learn by reading other men’s experience will go ahead rapidly and soon make a success of it.

I believe this alfalfa movement is the most important agricultural event of the century. For the production of beef, mutton and milk, the combination of corn ensilage and rightly cured alfalfa hay, furnishes almost a perfect ration, requiring but a small addition of grain feed. Both of these can be cheaply and easily produced on nearly every farm in the land. In my herd of nearly fifty registered and grade Guernsey cows these feeds constitute the sheet anchor of my dairy work.

No one more literally abets the growth of two blades of grass where one grew before than he who effectively urges the cultivation of alfalfa upon those who are strangers to it, and no one is more truly working for the benefit of agriculture, the basis of all prosperity, than he who proclaims its excellence as the foremost forage.

Hoard’s Dairyman will do all in its power to enhance the circulation and reading of such a book as Mr. Coburn has made.

W. D. HOARD.

Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
1906

Publisher’s Announcement

All the plates of the “Book of Alfalfa” were destroyed in the disastrous fire that consumed our mechanical department January 28, 1907. We have taken advantage of this emergency and present the present volume in a new and revised edition, with the additional material furnished by the author.

ORANGE JUDD COMPANY.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

A Typical Alfalfa Plant

as it appears before the blossoms are developed. From Michigan Experiment Station Bulletin No. 225

Typical Stems and Foliage of the Alfalfa Plant

when beginning to blossom the most suitable for hay. Grown in Shawnee County, Kansas, on unirrigated upland prairie with a “gumbo” or hardpan subsoil. From the season’s third cutting, August 20; height 24 and 26 inches

ALFALFA
(Medicago sativa, Linn.)

CHAPTER I.
History, Description, Varieties and Habits

HAS ALWAYS BEEN KNOWN

There appears no record of a time when alfalfa was not in some portions of the world esteemed one of Nature’s most generous benefactions to husbandry and an important feature of a profitable agriculture. Its beginning seems to have been contemporary with that of man, and, as with man, its first habitat was central Asia, where the progenitors of our race knew its capabilities in sustaining all herbivorous animal life, and where, possibly, it too afforded the herbage which sustained Nebuchadnezzar in his humiliating exile, and eventually restored him to sanity and manhood.

It was carried by the Persians into Greece with the invasion by Xerxes in 490 B. C., utilized by the Romans in their conquest of Greece, and carried to Rome in 146 B. C. Pliny and other writers praise it as a forage plant and it has been in cultivation in parts of Italy continuously from its introduction. Some writers are disposed to aver that it was brought to Spain and France by the Roman soldiery under Cæsar and early thereafter, but more probably it was not introduced into those countries until several centuries later. It is known to have been cultivated in Northern Africa about the time it was first brought to Italy; and the name “alfalfa” being Arabic the inference might be reasonable that it was introduced into Spain by the Moors from Northern Africa at the time of their conquest of Spain about 711 A. D., but this is of small consequence to the twentieth century. From Spain it crossed to France, and later to Belgium and England. It was highly spoken of by an English writer of the fifteenth century.

AMERICA INDEBTED TO SPAIN

But in those ages Europe was not so much interested in agriculture as in war. Land tenures were not well fixed and ownerships were uncertain. Spain, however, was to perform at least two important services for half the world, if none for herself. She was to reveal to civilization a new continent, and give to it the most valuable forage plant ever known. And so, in 1519, Cortes, the Spaniard, and his remorseless brigands carried murder, rapine and havoc to Mexico, but gave alfalfa. Less than a score years later Spain also wrote in Peru and Chili some of the bloodiest pages of human history, but left alfalfa there, where it has since luxuriantly flourished. If it was brought to the Atlantic coast of the United States in that century, it was not adopted by the Indian inhabitants, who were not an agricultural people, nor by the early European settlers.

It was not until about 1853 or 1854 that it was introduced into northern California, the legends say from Chili, but it had been grown by the Spaniards and Indians in southern California for probably a hundred years, having had a gradual migration from Mexico. Strange to relate, while it is even now on the Atlantic coast discussed as a new plant, there is good evidence that it has been in cultivation on a small scale in the Carolinas, New York and Pennsylvania for probably one hundred and fifty years. Certainly there are small fields in those states that have been producing for over sixty years, and there are to be found articles and letters written far earlier showing that it was then known and had been proven. One Spurrier, in a book dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, and written in 1793, spoke highly of alfalfa, called “lucerne;” told how it should be cultivated, and that three crops of valuable hay could be cut annually. In the “Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture,” published at Albany in 1801, it was favorably mentioned, and in the “Farmers’ Assistant,” printed in Albany in 1815, alfalfa was praised and the statement made of its yielding 6 to 9 tons of hay per acre “under the best cultivation and plentiful manuring.” Yet its cultivation did not spread. The inertia of farmers, or perhaps their indifference to new ideas, in the early days must have been marvelous. According to Spurrier the difficulties were not considered greater than now; he said one planting would survive many years and the yield was three times as great as that of any other forage plant. The seed was no doubt introduced there from England or France; it was probably scarce, and difficult to secure from growings in this country.

THE NAME AND ITS ORIGIN

The name “Alfalfa” is from an Arabic word meaning “the best fodder,” which honor it can certainly still claim. Many writers have assumed that the name “Lucerne” which it bears in France and England, was from the name of the Swiss canton, Lucerne. This is a mistake as it was not known there until long after it was cultivated in France and England. The name is probably from the Spanish word “Userdas” which the French changed to “La-cuzerdo” and later to “Luzerne,” still later to “Lizerne” and then to “Lucerne.”

Among other names by which alfalfa is known are the following: Lucerne; French Lucerne; French Clover, in part; Mexican Clover, in part; Lucerne Clover; Lucerne Medicago; Alfalfa Clover; Chilian Clover; Brazilian Clover; Syrian Clover; Sainfoin, erroneously; Spanish Trefoil; Purple Medick; Manured Medick; Cultivated Medicago; Medick. Persian, Isfist; Greek, Medicai; Latin, Medica, Herba Medica; Italian, Herba Spagna; Spanish, Melga or Meilga, also (from the Arabic), Alfalfa, Alfasafat; French, La Lucerne; German, Lucerne, Common Fodder, Snail Clover, Blue Snail Clover, Branching Clover, Stem Clover, Monthly Clover, Horned Clover, in part, Perennial Clover, Blue Perennial Clover, Burgundy Clover, Welsh Clover, Sicilian Clover.

Alfalfa belongs to the botanical family Leguminosae, or the legumes, of which there are thousands of species, and is thus related to all clovers, peas, vetches and beans. Its botanical name is Medicago sativa. There are some fifty species of the genus Medicago that are known, but alfalfa and one or two others are all that are of practical value as fodders. It is a true perennial plant, smooth, upright, branching, ordinarily growing from one to four feet high, yet in some instances much higher, owing to conditions of soil, climate and cultivation. Its leaves are three parted, each leaflet being broadest about the middle, rounded in outline and slightly toothed toward the apex. The purple pea-like flowers instead of being in a head, as in red clover, are in long, loose clusters or racemes. These are scattered along the plant’s stems and branches, instead of being especially borne, as in red clover, on the extremities of the branches. The matured seed-pods are spirally twisted through two or three complete curves, and each pod contains several seeds. The seeds are kidney-shaped, and average about one-twelfth of an inch long by half as thick. They are about one-half larger than seeds of red clover, and in color are at their best an olive green or a bright egg-yellow, instead of a reddish or mustard yellow, or faded brown. The ends of the seeds are slightly compressed where they are crowded together in the pod.

Alfalfa is very long-lived; fields in Mexico, it is claimed, have been continuously productive without replanting for over two hundred years, and others in France are known to have flourished for more than a century. Its usual life in the United States is probably from ten to twenty-five years, although there is a field in New York that has been mown successively for over sixty years. It is not unlikely that under its normal conditions and with normal care it would well-nigh be, as it is called, everlasting.

ITS WONDERFUL ROOT SYSTEM

In its root growth it is probably the greatest wonder among plants. While it usually grows no higher than four or five feet (although it has been known to reach more than ten feet; an unirrigated stalk is on exhibition at the office of the Kansas Board of Agriculture, measuring nearly seven feet) and its normal height is about three feet, its roots go down ten, twenty, or more feet, and one case in Nevada is reported by Charles W. Irish, chief of Irrigation Inquiry United States Department of Agriculture, where the roots were found penetrating through crevices in the roof of a tunnel one hundred and twenty-nine feet below the surface of an alfalfa field. Prof. W. P. Headden of Colorado found roots nine feet long from alfalfa only nine months old, and another reports roots seventeen inches long of but four weeks’ growth, the plants being but six inches high. It usually has a slender taproot, with many branches tending downward, yet with considerable lateral growth. As the taproot is piercing the earth it is also sending out new fibrous roots, while the upper ones, decaying, are leaving humus and providing innumerable openings for air, the rains, and fertilizing elements from the surface soil. The mechanical effect of this root-growth and decay in the soil constitutes one of the greatest virtues of the plant, and by its roots alfalfa becomes, self-acting, by far the most efficient, deep reaching subsoiler and renovator known to agriculture.

VARIETIES AND PECULIARITIES

There are several other varieties of alfalfa besides Medicago sativa, the most common being the Intermediate Lucerne or Medicago media, the Yellow Lucerne or Medicago foliata and Turkestan alfalfa or Medicago sativa Turkestanica. None of these have such unqualified value as the ordinary alfalfa; in fact the first two are properly regarded as weeds when found with Medicago sativa. In 1898 when there had been reported many failures in the alfalfa districts of the extreme North and the extreme Southwest, the United States Department of Agriculture sent Prof. N. E. Hansen of South Dakota to Russia, especially the cold, arid and semi-arid portions of northern Turkestan, to discover if possible a more hardy strain of alfalfa than that grown in America. He brought back from there several hundred bushels of seed which was distributed to government stations and individual experimenters in forty-seven states and territories. The reports of its behavior varied greatly, some growers being enthusiastically in its favor, while most reported results below or not above the average from other sorts, and some practically a failure. It would appear from the consensus of opinion at this time that the Turkestan alfalfa has not demonstrated in America any such superiority as to justify its general adoption, even in the dry and warm regions of the Southwest, in our colder states, or in Canada.

An Eight-year-old Alfalfa Plant

with 312 stems growing from one root. Grown at Manhattan, Kan., on high upland prairie having a stiff, hardpan subsoil. Depth to water 180 feet Height of growth May 6, ten inches

Crown of Plant Shown in the Preceding Illustration

Stalks removed to show branching crown

Alfalfa Blossoms Enlarged

Among other claims for Turkestan alfalfa by the government officials in charge of its introduction and exploitation have been that “its seed will germinate much quicker and the plants start into growth earlier under the same conditions than common alfalfa. The plants are more leafy, grow more rapidly, and have a stronger, more vigorous root system. Another advantage which the Turkestan variety has is that the stems are more slender and less woody, the plants making a more nutritious hay of finer quality. That it will withstand drought under the same conditions better than ordinary alfalfa seems certain from the reports of the experimenters. In the West and Northwest, at least, it seems to be more productive, both with and without irrigation.”

At the North Dakota station Turkestan alfalfa sown in 1901 yielded in the three years following (1902-3-4) at the average rate of slightly more than two tons per acre annually.

Acclimation of alfalfa is a slow process, and numerous close observers think there are too many radical differences in climate and possibly of soil between Turkestan and New Mexico, or North Dakota, to admit of this variety’s becoming a preeminently valuable acquisition to America. It is thought more reasonable to let the American-grown alfalfa gradually accustom itself, as it will, to any particular region, sowing seed from nearly the same latitude and grown under as nearly as possible the conditions it will encounter in its new environment.

In 1903 the Department of Agriculture began experimenting on a small scale at stations in Arizona, California and the warm regions with alfalfa seed procured by Mr. D. G. Fairchild, from Arabia. The officials in charge observe that the plants from this seed appear to make a much quicker growth after cutting, and as a result of this one more crop in a season than is obtained from other alfalfa may be possible. It differs from other strains in having larger leaflets and in being much more hairy. “It is thought very probable that by careful selection hardiness can be bred into Arabian alfalfa so that it will grow much farther north than it does at present.”

AN OPINION FROM HEADQUARTERS

As a latter day opinion or estimate of alfalfa from an official who is presumed to speak as an authority, without bias and knowing his subject, the words of W. J. Spillman, agrostologist of the United States Department of Agriculture, should carry weight. In an address before the eleventh annual convention of the National Hay Association, at St. Louis, in 1904, Professor Spillman said:

“Alfalfa is the oldest plant known to man; it is the most valuable forage plant ever discovered. It has not been appreciated in the eastern part of the United States until the last five years. We are now growing it successfully in every state in the Union, and I believe it is safe to say in every agricultural county in the United States it is being grown with success. Two weeks ago I secured a picture of a field of alfalfa in South Carolina that was sowed over sixty-nine years ago. It was still in pretty good condition. I know of another field in New York State sowed forty-five years ago, and one in Minnesota that was sowed thirty-three years ago. All over the West there are thousands of fields of alfalfa that were sowed twenty-five years ago that are still yielding large crops. In Wisconsin alfalfa yields three crops of hay a year, and in Texas, four and five large crops. In southern California, below sea-level, where they never have any frost, they cut alfalfa eleven times a year, and in Texas, south of the Rio Grande, they cut it nine times a year.

“Alfalfa does not exhaust the soil. Nitrogen is the soil’s most important element, and the one most liable to give out; the one the farmer is called upon to supply first. Alfalfa does not ask the farmer for nitrogen at all, because it can get its nitrogen out of the atmosphere. Four-fifths of the atmosphere consists of nitrogen. Ordinarily, plants cannot make use of that nitrogen at all; the roots of the alfalfa will leave in the soil eight or ten times as much nitrogen as was there before. The farmer who plants alfalfa, clover or peas does not have to get nitrogen from the fertilizer factories. I know one farmer who for the past eight years has made an average of eight and one-half tons per acre of alfalfa on irrigated land in the state of Washington. I have heard of other men that produced twelve tons an acre in southern Texas on irrigated land. It would hardly be possible to produce that much on land that is not irrigated, because rain does not come to order.

“I have lived ten years in a country where the horses, cattle, sheep, hogs and chickens eat alfalfa hay, or green alfalfa, the year round. It is the richest hay food known. Eleven pounds of it is worth as much for feeding purposes as ten pounds of bran.”

A most pleasing word-picture of alfalfa is that by Geo. L. Clothier, M. S., who has studied his subject closely in the field, the feed lot and the laboratory, and he paints it thus:

“The cultivation and feeding of alfalfa mark the highest development of our modern agriculture. Alfalfa is one of nature’s choicest gifts to man. It is the preserver and the conserver of the homestead. It is peculiarly adapted to a country with a republican government, for it smiles alike on the rich and the poor. It does not fail from old age. It loves the sunshine, converting the sunbeams into gold coin in the pockets of the thrifty husbandman. It is the greatest mortgage lifter yet discovered.

“The alfalfa plant furnishes the protein to construct and repair the brains of statesmen. It builds up the muscles and bones of the war-horse, and gives his rider sinews of iron. Alfalfa makes the hens cackle and the turkeys gobble. It induces the pigs to squeal and grunt with satisfaction. It causes the contented cow to give pailsful of creamy milk, and the Shorthorn and white-faced steers to bawl for the feed rack. Alfalfa softens the disposition of the colt and hardens his bones and muscles. It fattens lambs as no other feed, and promotes a wool clip that is a veritable golden fleece. It compels skim-milk calves to make gains of two pounds per day. It helps the farmer to produce pork at a cent and a half a pound and beef at two cents.

“Alfalfa transforms the upland farm from a sometime waste of gullied clay banks into an undulating meadow fecund with plant-food. It drills for water, working 365 days in the year without any recompense from man. The labor it performs in penetrating the subsoil is enormous. No other agricultural plant leaves the soil in such good physical condition as alfalfa. It prospects beneath the surface of the earth and brings her hidden treasures to the light of day. It takes the earth, air, moisture and sunshine, and transmutes them into nourishing feed stuffs and into tints of green and purple, and into nectar and sweet perfumes, alluring the busy bees to visits of reciprocity, whereon they caress the alfalfa blossoms, which, in their turn, pour out secretions of nectar fit for Jupiter to sip. It forms a partnership with the micro-organisms of the earth by which it is enabled to enrich the soil upon which it feeds. It brings gold into the farmer’s purse by processes more mysterious than the alchemy of old. The farmer with a fifty-acre meadow of alfalfa will have steady, enjoyable employment from June to October; for as soon as he has finished gathering the hay at one end of the field it will be again ready for the mower at the other. The homes surrounded by fields of alfalfa have an esthetic advantage unknown to those where the plant is not grown. The alfalfa meadow is clothed with purple and green and exhales fragrant, balmy odors throughout the growing season to be wafted by the breezes into the adjacent farmhouses.”

Intergrading Types of Seed Between Alfalfa and Sweet Clover

The six seeds to the left being alfalfa, the five to the right Sweet clover. Magnified eight diameters

Seeds of the Weed Known as Buck-horn

Ribbed plantain, English plantain, or Rib-grass, (Plantago lanceolata). Very commonly present in alfalfa seed, especially that of European origin A bad weed. Magnification five diameters

Alfalfa Seeds Magnified Five Diameters

Note the characteristic angular point at one end, typical of alfalfa. The kidney-shaped type, as in “a” is also characteristic. The rounded type “b” is rare, and resembles Sweet clover. Seeds marked “c” and “d” resemble Yellow trefoil in the projecting “beak”

CHAPTER II.
Universality of Alfalfa

ITS WIDE DISTRIBUTION

As the history of alfalfa is traced in the preceding chapter the conclusion is reached that its distribution is not to be circumscribed by any hard and fast lines of climate and soil. It is grown profitably in every country of Europe, in central Asia, its original home, in Australia, the islands of the sea, and in almost every state and territory of the United States, and in Canada. Only two states, Maine and New Hampshire, and only one territory, Alaska, are left wholly in the experimental column. Everywhere else there have been such results as to prove that it ought to become, in greater or less degree, a staple crop on practically every farm, dependent only upon more energy, faith and skill on the part of the farmer, and a natural acclimation. There are several other states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Dakota where the experiment station experts are not fully ready to recommend it as a regular crop for every farm, yet, in each of these there are enterprising farmers who have for years found profit in its raising. The station authorities in Vermont say that success with alfalfa there “depends first on the man, and second on the soil.”

W. R. Dodson, botanist of the Louisiana station, says it is his firm conviction that nothing will contribute so much as alfalfa toward making the southern farm self-supplied with feed for work animals, for the production of dairy products, and home raised meat. “I doubt,” he also says, “if alfalfa does better anywhere outside the irrigated regions of the West than it does in the alluvial lands of Louisiana. We have had as high as eight cuttings in one year, with a total tonnage larger than is had in Kansas or Nebraska, and our annual rainfall is sixty-five inches, or more.”

From Ontario, Canada, comes a report of a yield of four tons to the acre in three cuttings, on a clay hillside; at far-off Medicine Hat, Northwest Territory, it makes a growth pronounced “phenomenal,” and at the experimental farm at Brandon, Manitoba, three cuttings per year are harvested. On a gravelly hill in the District of Columbia, a field was sown in April, 1900. Two crops were cut from it that summer, three in 1901, and the first cutting in 1902 yielded three tons per acre. In southern Minnesota, some thrifty Germans, not knowing that “alfalfa will not grow in Minnesota,” have been raising it since 1872, while others were declaring it impossible. A half-score of men in the sagebrush wilds of Nevada decided to try it, and in 1872 they had 625 prosperous acres, without plowing and without irrigation. J. H. Grisdale, agriculturist of the Central experimental farm at Ottawa, (Bul. No. 46) says, “it is grown in Canada more or less extensively from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is the staple forage plant for winter in the dryer part of British Columbia, and it has been grown in Southern Alberta for many years. It is not much known in Manitoba, but is possible of easy propagation in almost all parts of Ontario. It is, and has been grown long and successfully in Quebec, and is not unknown in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.” In Cape Colony, South Africa, “lucerne can be cut from four to six times in summer and from once to twice in winter, and is the greatest forage plant in the world.” In 1901 the British consul at Buenos Ayres reported alfalfa as covering “an enormous area in Argentina, and every year becoming more important.”

NOT PARTICULAR AS TO SOIL

While experts have been declaring that alfalfa would only grow in certain soils and in certain climates it has proven adaptability to nearly all climates and almost all soils. It produces with a rainfall as scant as 14 inches, and in the Gulf states flourishes with 65 inches. It gives crops at an elevation of 8000 feet above sea level, and in southern California it grows below sea level to a height of six feet or over, with nine cuttings a year, aggregating ten to twelve tons. An authenticated photograph in possession of the writer, [reproduced] opposite page 231, shows a wonderful alfalfa plant raised in the (irrigated) desert of southern California, sixty feet below sea level, that measured considerably more than ten feet in height. Satisfactory crops are raised, but on limited areas as yet, in Vermont and Florida. New York has grown it for over one hundred years in her clay and gravel; Nebraska grows it in her western sand hills without plowing, as does Nevada on her sagebrush desert. The depleted cotton soils of Alabama and rich corn lands of Illinois and Missouri each respond generously with profitable yields to the enterprising farmer, while its accumulated nitrogen and the sub-soiling it effects are making the rich land more valuable and giving back to the crop-worn the priceless elements of which it has been in successive generations despoiled by a conscienceless husbandry.

Its introduction into Maryland was largely through the perseverance of Prof. W. T. L. Taliaferro of the agricultural college, who says: “The future for alfalfa for southern Maryland is bright, indeed, and with its general introduction will come a new era of prosperity for the ‘lower counties.’ Live stock farming will take the place of tobacco farming. The fertilizing elements of the soil will be concentrated at home instead of being shipped abroad. Larger crops will be raised. Soil improvement will take the place of soil exhaustion; worn-out farms will be restored to their original fertility.”

THE ORACLES REFUTED

One by one the oracular statements of so-called experts have been shown at fault. One said, “it will grow wherever corn will grow;” and as promptly men from New York and Louisiana rise and say that they are growing it where corn will not grow. Another declares, “it will not grow over a hardpan or gumbo subsoil;” at once a New York man reports a good field of alfalfa with roots fifteen feet long that pass through six inches of hardpan which was so hard that it had to be broken with a pick axe in following the root. A Kansas man writes that he has eighty acres that has stood five years and promises to continue indefinitely, yielding 4¹⁄₂ tons from three cuttings a year, and the whole of it on gumbo soil where corn raising was a failure. Another declares, “it must have a rich, sandy loam,” and forthwith from the deserts of Nevada, the sand hills of Nebraska and the thin, worn, clay soils of the South come reports of satisfactory yields. Such results are significant, indicating better returns than any other crop brings from these varied soils, and that few farmers are justified in postponing the addition of alfalfa to their agriculture because of supposed hindrance of soil and climate.

A NEW YORK EXAMPLE

As citing an example, and suggestive of the fact that alfalfa not only grows but flourishes in the eastern states where the claim has been made that it would not grow, the following by the editor of the Rural New-Yorker, in his journal of September 3, 1904, is forcibly to the point:

“A farmer visiting the New York state fair this year will do well to take time to look at some of the alfalfa fields near Syracuse. Whether it means that the soil in this locality is well suited to alfalfa, or that farmers have learned how to grow it, it is a fact that the crop makes a wonderful showing there. You find it everywhere—in great billowy fields of green, along the roadsides—even in vacant city lots. The crop crowds in whether the seed is sown by hand, dropped from a passing load or scattered by the wind. The majority of the farms show great fields of it, and the character of farming is slowly changing as more and more alfalfa is cut. On fruit farms or small private places the crop is changing methods and habits. A few acres in alfalfa provides all the roughness needed for stock on these small places, and gives extra room for fruit or similar crops. In fact, the most interesting thing about these alfalfa fields is the way they are changing the entire conditions of the country. It is similar to what happens when a new industry is established in a town or city.

“The Grange meeting at a Mr. Worker’s farm, was held in a great barn. He had delayed the alfalfa cutting so that the barn might be empty. Some other farmers nearby had already cut. I had a chance to see alfalfa growing under what seemed to me about the toughest chance you can give a plant. The city of Syracuse is buying gravel from his field, to use on the street. The workmen are digging right into the hill, and it requires hard labor to pick up this tough, hard soil. As they dig they follow the roots of the alfalfa down. Some of the roots are quite as large as my thumb, and I am sure that many of them had gone down twenty feet at least into this tough soil. These big roots make plowing an alfalfa sod anything but fun. This is one of the few objections to the crop. I had supposed that the plant does its best where it can work down into an open or gravel subsoil. I have been told by one who is called an ‘expert’ that alfalfa cannot thrive on a hardpan subsoil, yet here it was going down into the toughest soil I ever saw, and covering the surface with a perfect mat of green stalks. Mr. Worker goes so far as to say that the tougher the subsoil the better the alfalfa goes through it, provided water does not stand about the roots. That is one point upon which all agree—the alfalfa cannot stand wet feet. It must have water enough; that is why its roots go down so far, but it will not thrive in wet fields where water does not run easily away.

“On other farms I saw the alfalfa growing at the top of steep clay hills, which were formerly almost useless for farm purposes unless stuffed with stable manure. Now that alfalfa has been started these hill-tops have become about the most profitable fields on the farm. At another place I saw a fair crop of alfalfa growing in a thin streak of soil over a rocky ledge. There were not eighteen inches of soil covering the solid rock, yet the alfalfa was thriving. I have been told that this is the condition under which alfalfa will not grow, yet here it was giving more forage than any red clover we can grow. I have said that the spreading of these alfalfa fields is changing the character of farming in central New York. It is not easy to realize just what this means without visiting this favored section. This new forage plant brings fertility and feed to the farm. It is just like having a fertilizer factory and a feed store drop out of the skies upon the farm, to get this alfalfa well started. Of course as the farmer learns what the crop will do he uses it more and more to feed both stock and the farm. It would not be a very bright farmer who would continue to grow wheat or some other annual crop which brings him $25 per acre when a permanent crop like alfalfa will guarantee $60. Some farmers are quicker to see this than others, but in the end the majority of them see it and then we see a change. These alfalfa farmers are giving a great object lesson, and their farms are more interesting than any exhibit at the state fair.”

CHAPTER III.
Yields, and Comparisons With Other Crops

COMPARED WITH CLOVER

Many things are understood best through contrasts with others better known. In every part of the country certain crops are considered standard, and all others are judged by comparison with these. For example, red clover in most parts of the United States is ranked as the richest and best yielding forage, and the fertilizer and renovator par excellence.

The Massachusetts experiment station after a series of tests reports that 100 pounds of clover contain 47.49 pounds of digestible food and 6.95 pounds of proteids, while 100 pounds of alfalfa contain 54.43 pounds of digestible food and 11.22 pounds of proteids.

The New Jersey station reports that the average yield per annum of green clover to the acre is 14,000 pounds, and of green alfalfa 36,500 pounds; the protein in the clover is 616 pounds and in the alfalfa, 2214 pounds; one ton of alfalfa has 265 pounds of protein, and clover only 246 pounds. But alfalfa will produce three, four, or more cuttings each year, while clover will produce but one or at most two. Further, clover will ordinarily survive but two years, while alfalfa will last from ten to one hundred, thus saving many plowings and seedings. It is also estimated that the stubble and root-growth of alfalfa are worth at least four times as much for humus as are those of clover, while the mechanical and other beneficent effects of the long alfalfa roots far excel those of clover. The alfalfa field is green for pasturage a month earlier in the spring than clover and may be mowed a month earlier. It starts a vigorous growth at once after cutting, covering the ground with its luxuriant foliage before the second growth of clover has made any substantial progress.

The Wisconsin experiment station says that “one acre of alfalfa yields as much protein as three acres of clover, as much as nine acres of timothy and twelve times as much as an acre of brome grass.”

COMPARISONS WITH SEVERAL GRASSES

[1] The alfalfa plat yielded a second cutting 26 inches high on August 2nd, and a third 24 inches high September 1st; there was also a six-inch after-growth estimated at 180 pounds. The total alfalfa yield was equivalent, “approximately to 6¹⁄₂ tons of good dry forage.” None of the other clovers or grasses gave more than one cutting.

[2] Robbed somewhat of both plant food and moisture by an adjacent row of grown cottonwood trees.

The Nebraska experiment station has made very careful tests of the comparative yields of various grasses, clovers and mixtures. These were on plats of one-fifth of an acre. The foregoing table shows the yields the second year from planting, which owing to the very dry spring was a quite unfavorable season.

COMPARED WITH CORN

The Colorado station reports a comparison with corn as follows:

INDIVIDUAL INSTANCES OF CASH RETURNS

A Lincoln county, Kansas, farmer writes that from five acres of alfalfa he received in one season $100 for hay, $150 for seed and $20 for straw.

A farmer near Atwood, Rawlins county, Kansas, cut two crops for hay and threshed the third crop for seed, realizing 13 bushels per acre, which sold at $5 per bushel.

A Harlan county, Nebraska, farmer reports an income of $774 in one year from seed and hay from six acres.

Scott Bros., of Pottawatomie county, Kansas, report to the author as follows concerning their returns from a twelve-acre field in one year:

A Buffalo county, Nebraska, farmer sold from a year’s growth on 22 acres, hay worth $328.12, seed $1000, and straw $150.

A Montgomery county, Kansas, farmer reports to the author a return of $106 per acre in one year from hay, seed and straw.

Another report was sent in 1904 from southern Kansas, of five cuttings, making 8¹⁄₂ tons per acre, which sold at $5 per ton in the field.

SOME REPORTS OF YIELDS

A farmer of Harvey county, Kansas, reported in 1903 two hay crops and one seed crop, the hay, seed and straw returning more than $50 per acre from a field that two years before had failed to yield enough corn to justify its gathering.

Sixteen acres in Reno county, Kansas, are reported to have pastured in 1904 four hundred pigs and yielded one cutting of hay of over 16 tons.

An alfalfa field of eleven acres in Washington, on the bank of the Columbia river, under irrigation, produced in 1901 over 100 tons of hay.

Former Governor W. D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, reports from three-fifths of an acre on his farm in the southern part of the state, four cuttings in one season, yielding 5.7 tons of hay.

Alva Langston, of Henry county, Indiana, sowed five acres of alfalfa May 20th, and harvested nearly 1¹⁄₂ tons of hay per acre August 25th following, and about the same quantity September 20th to 25th. This was on upland, thirty or more years in cultivation. The alfalfa was clipped twice before the cutting for hay.

In 1902 F. S. Kirk of Garfield county, Oklahoma, sowed a field near a creek, but about 25 feet above water, with thirty to thirty-five pounds of alfalfa seed per acre, broadcast. The soil, which he calls “high bottom,” was a dark brown and contained considerable sand. For two years no attention was given the alfalfa except harvesting from it three crops the second year and four the third year. In 1905 he harvested from ten acres nine cuttings, estimated to weigh fully one and one-half tons each, per acre. The longest time between any two cuttings was twenty-two days, and the shortest fourteen days. During the season of 1904 seven cuttings were made and the field was gone over with a disk harrow early each time after removing the hay from the field. It was possible to cut another growth of 8 to 12 inches, had he not preferred to use it as pasturage for stock.

Mr. Kirk does not irrigate and maintains that in his part of the country “the best irrigation for alfalfa is with a disk harrow.” He also insists that “alfalfa can be entirely killed by disking in the dark of the moon,” especially if the weather that follows is hot and dry. He pastures his alfalfa with cattle and horses in fall and spring, and disks in the spring as soon as the stock is removed.

SOME MONEY COMPARISONS

A good acre corn crop in Ohio is forty bushels, worth not to exceed $20, after all the labor of cultivating and husking; the stover, if properly cared for, ought to be worth $5, making a total of $25. An Ohio farmer reports a yield of 4¹⁄₂ tons of alfalfa hay per acre, worth for feed as compared with the price of bran about $12 per ton, or a total value of $54, from only one plowing in six years (as long as he let it stand) and with less labor in harvesting than for husking corn and caring for the stover.

A good Kansas or Nebraska corn yield (far above the state average) is 50 bushels per acre, worth ordinarily about $17, with stover worth $3. The farmer should obtain from his alfalfa at least four to five tons, worth to him for feed for cattle, hogs or sheep from $10 to $12 per ton—practically two or three times his income from an acre of corn, while the cost of production is much less.

The average year’s corn or wheat crop is worth only about $10 per acre, while the average alfalfa crop is worth on the market from $15 to $35, or more, per acre, owing to the market appreciation of the crop, and from $35 to $60 as feed for stock.

Many thousands of acres in western Kansas and Nebraska are now returning from their alfalfa fields an income of from $15 to $25 per acre where but a few years earlier the land was deemed worthless for agriculture. Hundreds of acres in western New York that were returning only a small income above cost of labor and fertilization are now supporting great money making dairies from alfalfa. Cotton land in the South rents for $5 per acre, while alfalfa fields bring a yearly rental of three times that amount.

Sweet Clover

Alfalfa

Yellow Trefoil

The Sweet clover and alfalfa are magnified five diameters and the trefoil seven diameters

Three Distinctive Types of Alfalfa Seed Magnified Twelve Times

The one at the left rounded; the one at the right kidney-shaped; and the one in the middle angular pointed. The latter is the most characteristic form seen in alfalfa seed

CHAPTER IV.
Seed and Seed Selection

NO SUCCESS WITHOUT GOOD SEED

It is a time-worn but no less true saying that good seed is essential to good agriculture. No matter how well the farmer prepares his land, no matter how much time, labor and money he spends on it, if much or all of his seed fails to grow, he will either have a poor crop or be obliged to reseed, thus losing time and labor. Many causes may contribute to prevent a good stand, but if he can eliminate any one of these, he is by so much the gainer. Poor seed is a primary and great cause of a poor stand.

The farmer obtains his seed from one of two sources; he raises it or buys it. If the former, there should be less danger, as the chief source of poor seed is careless handling in harvesting and storing. If the seed becomes damp, mold will damage much of it, or it will sprout, then dry out, and the germ be killed. If seed is bought of strangers or from a distance, the chances of poor quality increase many fold. If all seed were bought of reliable dealers, there would be less cause for complaint, but farmers too often buy where they can buy cheapest. They pay for trash that is either full of harmful weed seeds or has a liberal admixture of old and dead seeds left over from previous seasons.

Before seed is purchased it should be tested for purity and germination. The adage that a dollar saved is a dollar earned well applies here; it is an easy matter to waste a dollar on seed, and when profit depends on avoidance of useless expenditure the use of inferior seed points its own moral.

IMPORTANCE OF SIMILAR CONDITIONS

The farmer who has brought himself to the point of introducing alfalfa upon his farm should be extremely careful in the selection of seed. In the first place it is important that he should sow such as is produced in about the same latitude as his farm and from a region of about the same rainfall, thus keeping in a line of acclimation, and with the habits and habitat, as it were, of what he is seeking to raise. Next, he should not sow seed raised under irrigation if he is in a non-irrigation region. A Michigan farmer, for example, should sow seed grown as near to his latitude as possible, say, from Wisconsin, Minnesota or the Dakotas, or not south of Nebraska or Kansas. It is questionable, at present, whether it is wise or profitable to attempt raising alfalfa seed in the more humid districts of the eastern and southern parts of the United States. It may be economy to leave the raising of seed to those regions with the least summer rainfall, keeping always in mind the securing of seed grown under conditions nearly like those to which the seed is to be introduced.

Speaking of the alleged different varieties of alfalfa, the seed of which is urged upon buyers by seedsmen, the editor of the Oklahoma Farm Journal pertinently says:

“We see occasional references to ‘dry land’ alfalfa and statements that it’s a kind that just longs for the hilltops so that it may turn off big crops of rich hay from land too dry and hard to yield good sorghum. Don’t forget that the one thing to look for when purchasing alfalfa seed is good seed, that will grow. It’s hard to find and the price is usually high. When you buy it, buy subject to test and send a fair sample of about an ounce to your experiment station, where it will be tested without charge. At the present time there is but one variety of alfalfa that Oklahoma farmers should buy, and that is good alfalfa seed. There is no ‘dry land’ variety of alfalfa, and the much boomed Turkestan variety isn’t as good for sowing in Oklahoma as Oklahoma or Kansas grown seed. Rich soil, thorough preparation, good seed well sowed, cutting at the right time, harrowing when weeds and grass bother, all these are requisite to success with this most valuable crop, and it pays for all the bother.”

Seed from Nebraska and northwestern Kansas has been generally successful through Iowa and Illinois, and is probably adapted to Ohio and southern Pennsylvania. Utah seed produces good crops in Minnesota, the extremes of cold and heat in Utah having developed a strain that does well in cold climates. The writer would use Utah grown seed for New York, northern New Jersey and northern Pennsylvania, and seed from Wyoming or Montana for New England. On the sandy land of southern New Jersey, in Delaware and Maryland, the seed grown in southern Colorado and southern Kansas ought to do well.

Prof. H. M. Cottrell, formerly agriculturist of the Kansas experiment station, says: “One year I sowed 20 acres to alfalfa—19 acres with Utah grown seed and one acre with imported seed; both showed a germination of over 98 per cent, and the growth was good from both lots all through the season, with no difference that could be detected. The next spring there was a good stand all over the 19 acres seeded with Utah seed, and not a single live plant on the acre seeded with the imported seed. I have seen several trials with imported seed, and never yet saw a good crop harvested from it. Usually after passing through the first winter there is from one-fourth to one-half a stand from such seed; the plants make a weak growth and, if allowed to remain, most of them die out in two or three years. Descriptions of the puny growth in reports of failures of this crop, given by eastern growers, make one think that probably imported seed had been sown. No intelligent farmer would take corn grown in the warm soil and climate and long season of southern Kansas and expect to grow a good crop in New York on heavy soil with short seasons. It is even more difficult to succeed with so great a change in growing alfalfa, as it would have to withstand the long severe winter, as well as the change in summer conditions. No one should sow alfalfa seed without knowing where and under what conditions it was grown.”

New seed, other conditions being right, is always preferable, although that kept for several years, properly cared for, may have retained most of its germinability. Such tests as have been made appeared to show a loss in well stored seed of only about one and one-half per cent of germinability in five years. W. P. Headden (Colorado Bul. No. 35) after various experiments declares, “the results are positive in showing that the age of seed up to six years does not affect its germinating power.” It is usually handled and stored by seedsmen in the ordinary seamless cotton sacks holding from 150 to 160 pounds, and quoted and sold by the pound or hundred-pounds instead of by the bushel. The legal weight of a bushel of recleaned alfalfa seed is sixty pounds.

Although the seed is handled in sacks for convenience, seedsmen say there is no good reason why it might not be safely stored in bulk in bins without any deterioration from heating, or otherwise. There might, however, be some degree of danger from weevils or other insect pests in warm weather. Exposed to too much light, seed will lose its bright yellow color and change to a brownish cast. When stored, dealers say, it does not go through a “sweating” process as do the seeds of some other forage plants and grasses.

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF SEED

In years of large production in America and a shortage in other countries, considerable American seed goes abroad to Italy, France, Germany and Australia. The largest portion is consigned to Germany because extensive seed houses at Hamburg act as distributers to all portions of the world, from which they receive demands.

In recent years the United States has been a buyer rather than a seller, and imports have been as follows:

According to the government authorities the bulk of the imported seed comes from Germany and France. That having the best reputation in Europe comes from Provence, (southeastern) France. A small quantity comes from Italy, but it is not generally considered to be of as good quality as that grown farther north. Seedsmen complain that many consignments of the foreign seed contain large quantities of Yellow trefoil and Bur clover.

It is a fallacy popular among farmers and country seed dealers that great quantities of alfalfa seed are exported to be used for dyeing purposes. There is no foundation in fact for such a belief, and the exportations made, like the importations, are for seeding purposes exclusively.

IMPURITIES AND ADULTERATIONS

A foremost source of danger and loss, aside from infertile seed, is impurities and adulterants in the alfalfa seed planted. Growers often are careless and do not examine their alfalfa before or at the time of harvesting, and do not reclean their seed after threshing, thus sending out among innocent purchasers seed mixed with those of weeds, inferior grasses and forage plants, and with various trash which adds bulk and weight but has no value. The commonest seed adulterants or impurities are those of Sweet clover (Melilotus alba) ([Illus.] opp. p. 26), Bur clover (Medicago denticulata), Spotted clover (Medicago Arabica) ([p. 67]), Yellow trefoil or Hop clover (Medicago lupulina) ([p. 26]), and the Dodders (Cuscuta epithymum and Cuscuta arvensis), ([pp. 45] and [47]).

Yellow Trefoil Pods

The pods of Yellow trefoil are shaped as here shown and contain but a single seed. Magnified four diameters

Alfalfa Seed Pods

Alfalfa has a spiral pod of two or three turns, often containing five or six seeds. Magnified four diameters

Sweet Clover Pods

Magnified four diameters

Bur Clover Seed Pods

The seeds are enclosed in a coiled pod which is covered with bristly projections as shown above. Magnified four diameters

That an extraordinary proportion of the alfalfa seed in the markets, wheresoever from, is adulterated to an amazing extent with seeds of undesirable plants or loaded with worthless, if not actually harmful impurities, is being demonstrated by the United States Department of Agriculture. In a circular pertaining to this work is given the following, showing the adulterants found in samples bought in the open markets of the cities named:

In Farmers’ Bulletin No. 194 of the United States Department of Agriculture is given the [table] on page 34 to show the result of analyses of alfalfa seed imported within a period of six months.

Bearing also upon the adulterations, impurities and defectives found in alfalfa seed sold in the markets, extracts from reports of tests made at the Wooster, Ohio station (Bul. No. 142) are exceedingly interesting. In fifteen samples bought, each of one dollar’s worth, the quantity of pure germinable seed was found to range from 5.1 to 9.3 pounds; the number of noxious seeds found in a dollar’s worth of that bought as alfalfa seed ranged from 360 to 185,940. Seven of the fifteen one-dollar samples each carried more than 23,000 noxious seeds.

Seed bought at $7.80 per bushel showed as low as 61.2 per cent that was germinable, of which the actual cost was $12.74 per bushel. None of the fifteen samples had less than 77 per cent of germinable seed. One pound sample contained 21,728 noxious seeds, of which 18,144 were lamb’s-quarter or pigweeds; the same pound also had 3126 seeds of dodder. Another pound carried 6420 seeds of crab grass, and one had 3325 seeds of foxtail.

The station authorities recommend that no alfalfa seed be sown until carefully screened through a screen fine enough to remove dodder seeds. Wire sieves or screens with twenty meshes to the inch are found to serve the purpose.

ADULTERANTS DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED

As a further and more thorough discussion of the frequent adulterants, Prof. H. F. Roberts, botanist of the Kansas experiment station, has kindly prepared, with illustrations, for this volume the quoted statements which follow here:

“The immense and steadily increasing value of alfalfa as a forage crop in the United States, and the high price of the seed, make the securing of sound, pure seed a matter of supreme importance to farmers, and render it equally important for them to be able to recognize, by sight, the presence in alfalfa seed of the adulterants and seeds of certain weeds most commonly known to occur. There is conclusive evidence that an amount of adulteration and substitution is actually practiced with alfalfa seed. It is usually charged that this is done abroad, especially, as is alleged, in Germany.

“The writer has been informed that, to a limited extent, the practice exists in America. The chief adulterant used is the seed of the Yellow trefoil, or, as it is sometimes called, Hop clover or Black medick. (See illustrations opposite [pages 26] and [32].) About fifty species of plants are known as ‘medicks’ or, scientifically, Medicago; but it so happens that the only perennial species among them is alfalfa, which goes under the botanical name of Medicago sativa, ([p. 1]). Other species such as Yellow trefoil (Medicago lupulina) ([p. 38]) and Bur clover (Medicago denticulata,) while they possess some forage value and are useful to a limited extent, lack, for the most part, the lush, abundant growth of alfalfa itself, and are notably inferior through the fact of their annual habit. It is because of its perennial nature, therefore, as well as on account of its rank, succulent growth, that no species of annual leguminous plant can hope to compete with alfalfa for a moment in importance. This means, then, that any substitute for alfalfa seed, or adulteration of it with the seed of another related species, such as Yellow trefoil or Bur clover, is distinctly a fraud of serious character, despite the fact that the adulterants are plants that make fair pasturage and have some forage value. They are merely annuals, ending their life with the season, whereas a field of alfalfa should live twenty years or more, under right conditions.

THE CHIEF ADULTERANT

“At present, as stated, Yellow trefoil is the chief adulterant used in American alfalfa seed. A number of cases, indeed, of complete or almost complete substitution of Yellow trefoil for alfalfa seed have come to the writer’s attention within the past year. It is important, therefore, for farmers to know the characteristic marks of distinction between the seed of alfalfa and of its chief adulterants. What are the chief characteristics of alfalfa seed? [Facing page 13] are samples of pure alfalfa seed, photographed under a magnification of five diameters. It will be noted that seeds of three general types exist: (1) A kidney-shaped type, marked ‘a’ in the illustration; (2) a type in which one end terminates in an acute wedge, marked ‘e’; and (3) a type that is round or nearly so, marked ‘b’. These types clearly illustrated, arranged for comparison in parallel rows are [shown] opposite page 44. See also [page 27]. It should be noticed that type 2 is the most characteristic and frequent, and that the perfectly round type is extremely rare. This angular slant toward one tip of the seed is found nowhere among any of the adulterants. Neither does the kidney shape of seed occur, except in Bur clover; and, in that case, the difference in the size of the seeds of the two species is sufficient to distinguish them, in most instances.

Yellow Trefoil: Black Medic: Hop Clover (Medicago lupulina)

“It is when we consider the round or roundish type of alfalfa seed that there is difficulty in distinguishing from alfalfa the seeds of Yellow trefoil and of Sweet clover ([illus.] opp. p. 26), which latter frequently occurs as a weed seed, and possibly in some cases in sufficient quantity to be suspected as an adulterant. By comparison of the seeds of alfalfa with the two adulterants just mentioned, ([p. 26]) the resemblances and differences of the three species will become evident. In general the seeds of Yellow trefoil are shorter and rounder than those of alfalfa, the largest seeds of trefoil measuring 0.0629 inch wide by 0.0897 inch long; whereas the largest alfalfa seeds measure 0.0653 inch wide by 0.1153 inch long; so that the largest alfalfa seeds are a trifle wider and more than a third again as long as the largest trefoil seeds. The smallest seeds of Yellow trefoil are usually plumper and shorter than those of alfalfa (0.0511 inch wide by 0.0291 inch long, as compared with 0.0496 inch wide by 0.0751 inch long in alfalfa); nevertheless, among both the small and the large seeds, so far as the criterion of size goes, individuals occur that equally well belong to either species, and the average differences in size are not so great as the differences found on comparing the largest and the smallest seeds of the two species, the average for the trefoil being 0.0574 inch by 0.0799 inch, and for alfalfa 0.0582 inch by 0.0944 inch. So it will be seen at once that while trefoil seeds as a rule are smaller, shorter and rounder than those of alfalfa, the rule is transgressed by many individuals. We must, therefore, turn to the form and general outline of the seed. A farmer can detect at once an attempt to substitute wholly Yellow trefoil for alfalfa seed by the fact that in no case will the kidney-shaped or the regular-pointed types of seed be found in trefoil, whereas these always occur in alfalfa. ([Illustrated] opp p. 26.)

“In the more common cases, where adulteration rather than complete substitution is practiced, detection is more difficult—is practically impossible, in fact, without the aid of a lens or magnifying glass having a power of about fifteen diameters. There are many seeds of trefoil which can scarcely be distinguished from certain rounded seeds of alfalfa. Generally, however, the trefoil seed has a little projection or “beak” on the middle line of the seed, just back of the scar marking where the seed was attached to the pod. This is rarely found in alfalfa.

“Bur clover as an adulterant is probably not so frequently used as Yellow trefoil, since the larger size of its seed renders detection easy. Were it not for this fact, Bur clover would be a most effective adulterant, because its seeds resemble those of alfalfa more closely than do those of Yellow trefoil. There are, of course, smaller seeds of Bur clover and larger seeds of alfalfa that approximate each other in size, but the average Bur clover seeds measure 0.0604 inch by 0.1188 inch, as compared with an average for alfalfa of only 0.0582 inch by 0.0944 inch.

“So far as the plants of Yellow trefoil and Bur clover are concerned, they are easily distinguishable from alfalfa. Both are of lower growth, as a rule, than alfalfa. Both have wider leaflets, which, in Bur clover, are like broad, inverted wedges. The flowers of these plants are yellow, and are borne in scanty clusters. The pods are wholly unlike those of alfalfa. Alfalfa has a spiral pod of two or three turns ([p. 32]), containing as many as five or six seeds. Yellow trefoil has a straight pod ([p. 32]), containing but one seed. Bur clover has a coiled pod ([p. 33]), but covered with bristly projections that give the plant its name. Where adulteration or substitution is practiced, some of the pods are very apt to occur in the bulk seed, and they can then easily be identified and distinguished from those of alfalfa.

“Seed of Sweet clover seems to occur frequently in western-grown alfalfa seed ([p. 26]). Sweet clover ([illustrated] in this book) grows to a height frequently of from four to six feet, bearing small, white flowers on slender spikes three or four inches long. Unfortunately, and unlike Yellow trefoil and Bur clover, Sweet clover is generally rejected by stock. On this account, it is a plant of no generally established value for hay or as pasture, although, in some instances, it is successfully used. The seeds of Sweet clover are of a golden yellow when ripe; those of alfalfa, trefoil and Bur clover being greenish yellow. The seed coat of Sweet clover seed is covered with minute elevations, while alfalfa seed is smooth. The seeds of Sweet clover ([p. 26]) are rounder and plumper than those of alfalfa, and have a very pronounced groove between the main body of the seed and the ridge which marks the location of the rootlet of the young plant within. It is this ridge that in alfalfa seeds runs off, as a rule, in a marked slant, but which in both trefoil and Sweet clover, especially in the latter, forms a well-rounded curve to the tip of the seed. No pointed or kidney-shaped seeds are ever seen in Sweet clover. (See [illus.] opp. p. 26.)

A COMMON WEED IN IMPORTED ALFALFA SEED

“It remains to mention the most common weed found in imported alfalfa seed—the English or Ribbed plantain, or, as it is more generally called in the West, Buck-horn or Rib grass. It is a difficult weed to eradicate, lots of seed containing any noticeable percentage of it should be rejected. (See [illus.] opp. p. 13.)

“The farmer is often to blame for the poor seed of which he makes complaint. Prime alfalfa seed is expensive, and a cheap grade will inevitably be poor in quality, containing much dead seed, rubbish, and the seeds of many kinds of weeds. Where ‘cheap’ alfalfa seed is demanded it will always be sold, and buyers need not be surprised by its quality. On the other hand, there is no excuse or palliation for the offense of selling, under the name and at the price of standard alfalfa seed, seed of substituted species. It is the duty of seed dealers to ascertain beforehand the character and genuineness of seed that they sell under any given name, and this applies to the retailers as well as to the wholesale dealers. On the other hand, farmers cannot expect to obtain the best seed unless they are willing to pay the price it brings.”

DODDER SEED

Dodder seeds are somewhat smaller than alfalfa seeds ([pp. 45] and [47]), but are not separated from them except by careful recleaning; consequently, they are often sown along with the alfalfa seed, especially in that which has been imported. If a field is badly infested, it should be plowed up and devoted to some other crop for a few years. Prof. F. H. Hillman of Nevada (Bul. No. 47) says there are several kinds that infest alfalfa, but two kinds are especially common and destructive in this country. Cuscuta epithymum is the commoner. “The seeds of this ([p. 47]) are very small, and are almost sure to escape detection on casual examination of the samples; yet, once recognized under the lens, their presence may be easily discovered. They are so much smaller than alfalfa seeds that the use of a sieve of twenty meshes per inch separates them from the latter when only free dodder seeds are present. Not only are various other small weed seeds disposed of in the process, but little if any alfalfa seed worth buying is lost. The few ripened flowers of dodder retaining matured seeds, which sometimes pass the thresher uninjured, may be removed by proper fanning. It is safe to say that no purchaser of alfalfa seed can afford to neglect sifting his seed carefully with a twenty-mesh sieve, which is the mesh the writer recommends for the separation of this kind of dodder from alfalfa seed.

“Cuscuta arvensis is another dodder as destructive when once established. Its seeds ([p. 47]) seem to be less common, however. They are larger than the preceding, many of them being practically the same size as the smaller, more rounded alfalfa seeds, which they often strikingly resemble. Thus they are hard to detect, and cannot be removed without the loss of much small alfalfa seed. This should be the more dreaded of the two dodders, because alfalfa seed infested with seeds of Cuscuta epithymum can be made practically free from them with comparatively little loss and expense. Not so, however, with seed containing Cuscuta arvensis, which should not be purchased at any price. Dodder seeds can scarcely be regarded as an adulterant, yet as an impurity they are very common and most objectionable.” (See illustrations opp. [pp. 45], [46] and [47].)

CHAPTER V.
Soil and Seeding

VARIATE, YET UNIFORM

In this double title we have a case of the widest variations and the most positive and rigid uniformity. Alfalfa may be grown in almost every possible kind of soil and under almost all soil conditions (save two), but omitting these the seeding, including the tilth of the ground, is based, so far as any future success is concerned, on perfect cultivation. The dictum, “Alfalfa must have a dry, warm, sandy loam, very rich” has become obsolete, as already pointed out.

There are just two soil conditions that seem absolutely against the growth of alfalfa. The first is a soil constantly wet. The common remark, “Alfalfa will not stand ‘wet feet’,” seems to be the expression of a law. It does not do well where the water is nearer to the surface than six feet, or where in winter water will stand on the ground for over forty-eight hours. This invariably smothers the plants; in fact it usually kills any crop. If water flows over the field for some such time, due to a freshet, the alfalfa is often found uninjured if too much soil has not been deposited on and around the plants. Even in such instances fields have been saved by a disking once or twice, but it is wholly unwise to sow on a field subject to overflow, or one where water rises to the surface in winter or spring; likewise on a field so flat that water will not run off in time of a heavy rain or promptly drain out through the sub-surface. The time is rapidly coming everywhere when the intelligent farmer will not try to raise any crop on such a field, undrained. The alfalfa roots will find their way to moisture if given the right surface conditions. There are profitable alfalfa meadows in parts of Kansas where it is eighty feet to water, but there has not yet been found one that is prosperous where water comes close to the surface, or where it stands on the ground in winter.

Three General Types of Alfalfa Seed

The right-hand column, kidney-shaped, a characteristic form, but not so common as the type in the central column. The left-hand column approaches more nearly the rounded type of Sweet clover. Magnification five diameters

Dodder Seed Magnified

Alfalfa Seed Magnified

The other kind of soil where alfalfa refuses to grow is that in which there is too much acidity. This is often the case where corn and wheat have been raised for many years, thus robbing the soil of much lime; a condition that may be remedied by an application of lime to the land just before sowing the alfalfa, harrowing it in beforehand or, if the seed is to be broadcasted, the lime may be applied just before sowing, when once harrowing will suffice for both, or it may be sown with a drill—500 to 1000 pounds per acre.

A simple test for acidity is to make a deep cut in the ground with a knife, pressing the earth slightly apart; then push a piece of litmus paper into the opening and press the earth together. Leave the paper there for a few hours. If upon examination the litmus paper has a pink appearance it is proof of acidity, and this, as already said, may best be remedied with lime.

SOIL PREPARATION

With the only two negative points considered, the more important conditions upon which success will depend may be discussed. One chief essential is the advance preparation. Many of the most successful growers begin their preparations two or three years before they sow the seed. There must be, by rights, the most perfect physical condition of the soil. It should have been plowed deep for at least two years, and in most fields in the central and northern states a two- or three-inch subsoiling along with a seven- or eight-inch plowing will be very helpful.

If corn is to precede a spring sowing, the ground should have a liberal dressing of stable manure plowed under for humus, to encourage earthworms and to introduce the particular bacteria so essential to alfalfa’s welfare or at least furnish favorable conditions for bacteria, and the harrow should follow the plow each day. The soil’s condition should be like that for a garden. Care should be taken never to work with the ground when too wet, as such working almost inevitably results in clods and baked soil. The corn should be cultivated often, and a liberal sowing of cowpeas just before the last cultivation, which should be shallow, has been found quite helpful. This crop will repress and take the place of weeds, furnish a rich food for fattening pigs or lambs after the corn is cut, add fertility to the soil, and also introduce bacteria similar to the bacteria for the alfalfa. The cowpea, being a legume, prepares the way for alfalfa, its near relative.

Dodder Plant on an Alfalfa Stem

Dodder, (Cuscuta arvensis)

(a) A group of seeds (enlarged), showing the prevailing forms; (a, b, and c) individual seeds having somewhat the form of clover seeds; (d) a group showing the natural size

Alfalfa and Dodder Seed. Actual Size

Dodder, (Cuscuta epithymum)

(a) A group of seeds showing comparative forms and relative size (enlarged); (b) a group showing the natural size; (c) the embryo removed from the seed, showing the form it usually assumes; (d) a section of a seed, showing the manner in which the embryo lies imbedded in the endosperm

KEEP DOWN THE WEEDS

It is always timely to emphasize the very great importance of keeping down weeds in the cornfield where alfalfa is to be sowed the next spring. If corn is husked from the fields, the stalks should not be pastured except when the ground is fully frozen. Later they should be thoroughly broken, raked and burned, to leave the land in the best condition for spring work. If the corn is cut and fodder hauled off, the stubs should be broken in cold weather by a pole or other drag, and raked and burned as recommended for the stalks. This adapts the ground for disking and harrowing early in March. Then every ten days the field should be disked or harrowed to conserve moisture, to start weeds and then kill them, and to bring the ground into the desirable tilth. Ordinarily, in the central states, sowing may be done early in April, while in the South this may be done by the middle of March, and in Wisconsin and Canada by the last of April or early May, although the dates are variable. Many report seeding in Kansas the middle of May, obtaining a clipping in July and a hay crop in September. Others report sowing in March and cutting a hay crop in June. Some Wisconsin reports say that the first of June is early enough, while others in that state and in Minnesota prefer to sow two or three weeks earlier, and still others in Wisconsin sow in April. The important things to keep in mind are to have the soil right and the weeds disposed of, and to sow when the weather and moisture and conditions are right. Alfalfa is a child of the sun; permanent shade from any source is its enemy, and when young it is not a good fighter against adversaries of any sort. More failures are due to weeds than to any other one cause, and unfortunately all the weeds do not grow on the land of the farmer who is shiftless or neglectful. The latter is so benevolent as to permit his weeds to scatter their seeds to the fields of his neighbors.

If a spring sowing is to be made on wheat ground, the land will be helped by a liberal dressing of manure immediately after the harvest, and by plowing and harrowing at once; then sowing about the last of August to rye or wheat for fall and winter pasturage, and to prevent the soil from leaching or washing. In the spring the land should be disked and harrowed for alfalfa, keeping in mind the point emphasized in the preceding paragraph. Instead of the rye or wheat, cowpeas may be sowed after the wheat harvest; thus both fertility and bacteria will be added to the soil, and the farmer have a valuable pasture crop for pigs or lambs. If the season is extremely favorable, a hay crop may be cut in early October.

If potatoes are to precede a spring sowing of alfalfa, more than usual care should be taken to keep the field clean of weeds. Some farmers do well by sowing millet with the last cultivation of potatoes, leaving the potatoes in the ground until after the millet is harvested, and when the crop is dug the land is free from weeds. Then it may be harrowed or disked and seeded to rye for winter pasture. Some plow the potato ground in the fall and sow to wheat or rye. Certainly if weeds are present the ground should be plowed as soon as the potatoes are dug. The idea is to secure a fine seed bed and have the ground free from weeds, the great curse of the American farm. All things considered there is probably no crop which leaves the soil in finer physical condition for alfalfa-sowing than millet, and none that is more unsatisfactory for a like purpose than sorghum or Kafir corn that was planted in hills or rows.

A clover sod for a spring sowing should be plowed in September or October, disked or harrowed, and not infrequently a light sowing of rye for winter pasture is feasible. In early spring use disk and tooth harrows on the land. It is excellent if a liberal application of rotted stable manure is plowed under with the clover sod. Usually it is better to follow clover with a corn or potato crop before seeding to alfalfa.

FALL SOWING

Fall sowing presents fewer difficulties than spring sowing. Corn is not the preceding crop and hence the weed problem is not so formidable. Usually a fall sowing follows millet or oats, cowpeas or potatoes. Almost any crop except the sorghums may be grown to precede alfalfa for a fall sowing; these should not be as they consume too much moisture. If possible, put on a dressing of stable manure the preceding winter; plow deep in the spring and work to a fine tilth for the summer crop. South of the latitude of 40 degrees cowpeas is one of the best preparatory crops. They are legumes, and the bacteria that live on their roots are similar to those upon the alfalfa roots; they are also nitrogen-gatherers, taking nitrogen from the air as does the alfalfa, and thus they prepare the soil for alfalfa. Besides, cowpeas are a valuable forage, the hay being worth almost as much, pound for pound, as that of alfalfa. When cut off they leave the ground ready for disking and other preparation. Millet is also excellent for this purpose, leaving the soil unusually friable. Potatoes make a satisfactory preparatory crop, but the danger from them too often is neglect to keep the weeds down. As soon as the land is free, it should be disked and harrowed, and this repeated about every ten days until the time for sowing.

RECENT PLOWING NOT DESIRABLE

It is seen that plowing for alfalfa just preceding the seeding is not recommended. Plowing leaves the sub-surface too loose, thus depriving the roots of a sufficiently firm footing and making a full sowing more liable to harm from freezing and thawing, and the spring sowing to harm from a dry summer. The necessity of the most perfect surface conditions cannot be to often emphasized, and this too includes considerable compactness rather than a too light or ashy condition. There must be no clods, no stiff and stubborn humps.

If alfalfa is to follow clover, and to be seeded in the fall, the sod should be broken early after the clover is harvested and each day’s plowing harrowed that day; then the field disked and cross-disked and harrowed again. After that it should be disked, lapping half, every ten or fifteen days until time for seeding. Alfalfa may follow timothy if the sod is not too old and stubborn, and it may be treated the same as clover sod.

INTRODUCE BACTERIA BY PREPARATORY SOWING

Another form of preparation followed by many successful growers, men who do not complain about alfalfa not doing well “here,” is the sowing of a few pounds of alfalfa seed on the field two or three years before it is intended to sow for a permanent crop. Mr. Joseph E. Wing, of central western Ohio, a widely known farmer, stockman, and writer on matters agricultural, uses alfalfa in a regular rotation, and two years before he is ready to sow it on a given field as a main crop, sows clover and timothy along with two or three pounds of alfalfa seed, for a pasture crop. Thus the bacteria are introduced, and when the pasture is plowed for the full sowing of alfalfa, the disking and harrowing that follow distribute the bacteria throughout the soil, and the probabilities of a good stand are greatly enhanced. He sometimes sows two or three pounds of alfalfa seed to the acre with a wheat crop two years before he is to sow the field entirely to alfalfa. Another, in a state where the experiment station director still declares alfalfa-raising to be doubtful, writes that he has not had a failure in a decade, and his plan is to precede alfalfa with winter wheat, sowing a little alfalfa seed with the wheat, probably three pounds to the acre, and the next fall after giving the land a thorough preparation he sows fifteen pounds of alfalfa seed to the acre. Another reports pleasing results in two different fields by sowing in the spring five pounds of alfalfa seed with clover; in two years the alfalfa stood thick on the ground, having crowded out the clover. If these plans introduce the bacteria into the soil, it may be wondered why it would not be equally helpful to sow two or three pounds of alfalfa seed per acre with the oats or millet in the spring, preparatory to the thorough seeding to alfalfa in the fall.

Another man, whose profit in raising alfalfa has been marked, reports that his soil is very waxy and hard to deal with. He has met this trouble by listing his ground in the fall and leaving it thus open for hard freezing throughout the winter. He then disks and cross-disks in the spring, putting the soil in fine tilth, and sowing millet as a preparatory crop. He has occasionally sowed alfalfa in the spring, following the fall listing and later freezing of his ground.

ALL CROPS DEMAND CONDITIONS

Alfalfa, like corn and cotton, demands certain conditions of the soil and certain constituents in that soil. Every crop demands its certain foods. All crops except alfalfa and the other legumes obtain practically all their food, including nitrogen, from the soil. The latter crops use nitrogen but get it from the air. Alfalfa takes nitrogen from the soil only during the first few months of its growth, and thereafter not only takes its own necessary supply from the air, but a large surplus which it stores in the soil, available for whatever crop may follow. Other crops take much nitrogen from the soil, but contribute nothing to its enrichment.

SPRING OR FALL SOWING—WHICH?

This has been a much argued question with experimenters. Possibly it will be found to be of minor importance in itself, depending more upon other conditions than the season. From the northern tier of states many reports favor spring sowing, yet from each come letters in favor of fall sowing. Several experiment stations in the South are in favor of spring sowing, yet report satisfactory results from fall seeding. It seems pretty well established, however, that fall sowing is safer in the central latitude states, say including Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Utah, and states within the same parallels.

In other states prevailing opinions favor spring sowing. Nevertheless, when all conditions are understood, fall sowing seems likely to become the established practice throughout the United States. This is in line with the system for the more staple crops and common rotation; it gives opportunity to bring the ground into better condition; the preparation and sowing come at the most convenient season, and one of relatively greater leisure; there is less interruption by unfavorable weather; the soil, responding more readily to surface cultivation, permits the work to be done with less danger of surface water retarding normal root development, and the annual weeds being dead they cannot interfere with the first growth of the alfalfa. Sown in the fall, with time to secure some growth for winter protection, alfalfa will be ready to respond to the first call of spring, and for the mower early in June. Moreover, if it fails from freezing or other cause, little crop-time is lost. The farmer has but to disk and harrow in April or early May, and sow half as much seed as he sowed in the fall, and he will have prospect of a cutting in eighty or ninety days, at an expenditure of but few pounds of seed and a little labor.

DISADVANTAGES OF SPRING SOWING

Ordinarily, if a farmer sows in the spring, he has his old enemy, the weeds, to contend with. If the season be damp and cloudy, the alfalfa may not grow fast, but weeds will. Therefore, June may see him mowing to retard a rampant growth of weeds instead of gathering a profitable cutting of prime hay. It is not improbable that he may be doing the same in July or in September, thus losing a whole season. Again, the spring preparation comes when the farmer needs to be working his corn and potato land; hence he is likely to slight or neglect the careful preparation of the alfalfa ground and so do a poor job, with, in such cases, the usual result of a “poor stand.” Then too, the frequent rains interfere with regular disking and harrowing and the weeds may obtain a start the farmer cannot check. In most cases fall sowing means three cuttings the following year. In many instances spring sowing means no crop the first season, although better farming will gain a September crop, while the best farming, with no weeds, may give two if not three crops; not heavy ones, perhaps, but of no inconsiderable value.

Commenting on spring sowing in the more northern states, Henry Wallace, editor of Wallaces’ Farmer, says:

“Our own experience in growing alfalfa both in Nebraska and Iowa has taught us that it is a waste of time and labor to sow in the spring. If sown in the spring without a nurse crop, it will have to be mowed twice, probably three times, to keep down the weeds, and even then it will not be in as good condition as if a crop of early corn or even oats was taken off, and the ground put in fine condition and seeded in August.

“In 1904 we sowed in the spring 250 acres of alfalfa on our Nebraska farm, and some twenty or thirty acres of it was washed in ridges by a very heavy rain immediately after. We reseeded the vacant spaces in the fall and later could see no difference between the fall sowing and the spring sowing. We did the same thing on one of our Iowa farms, sowing in the spring and mowing three times. Another piece was sowed in August. The August sowing was much better than the spring sowing. It should be said, however, that the land was richer and the difference was therefore not all due to the time of sowing. So long as Kansas farmers continued to sow their alfalfa in the spring they had but partial success, owing to the fact that Crab grass and other grasses will come up in the early fall and smother out the spring sowing. By using some other crop the first part of the season, then putting the land in fine condition in the month of August or even by September 1st, an alfalfa crop can be started which will have a strong enough growth to smother out the weeds the next spring.

“We don’t know that we would insist on this so strongly for northern Iowa and Minnesota, but certainly from the latitude of the Northwestern railroad in Iowa, south, and corresponding latitude in other states, we would abandon spring sowing and sow alfalfa on well prepared ground in August. We would not, however, plow the ground for this fall sowing, but put the soil in first-class condition for a spring crop, then use a disk and harrow for the fall preparation.”

SEEDING BY DRILL OR BROADCAST?

Here too, there is a variety of opinions, all based on experience. Those who object most to drills may have used poor implements, with feeding gears not well regulated, or possibly they have not known how to use the drills. Many who object to the broadcast method have had little training or skill in it. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that given soil in fine tilth, and a good drill rightly adjusted, there will be a more even, and hence a more economical distribution and a better and more uniform covering of the seed. It is also claimed that drilling secures a more uniform distribution of soil moisture. The general opinion is that by sowing with a drill, properly regulated, one can safely use five pounds less of seed per acre. Some alfalfa raisers use a wheelbarrow seeder; others use a kind of swing seeder strapped to the sower’s body; still others, who have had training in the old-fashioned method of broadcasting, declare it the best, but the experiment stations of practically all the states, and most up-to-date farmers, favor the use of the press drill. There are now on the market different types of alfalfa seeders which can be attached or are already attached to the ordinary grain drill, and that will distribute the seed in any desired quantities per acre with broadcast effect or leave it in drill rows as may be preferred. At the Kansas Experiment Station success has followed broadcasting, and cross-drilling gave no particular advantage.

HOW MUCH SEED TO THE ACRE?

Reports of seed sown, varying from six to sixty pounds to the acre, indicate much ignorance of the nature of the alfalfa plant; or a great recklessness and extravagance. Twenty pounds to the acre, if all seeds germinated, would mean 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 plants, whereas a stand of 500,000 is ample. Most of the experiment stations favor twenty to thirty pounds to the acre, although several experts at these stations insist that fifteen pounds of clean, germinable seed to the acre is as much as should be sowed. Even if these all grew it would give nearly 44 plants to the foot square of land, or four to five times as many as would thrive after two years old. Of course the quantity may depend upon a variety of circumstances, such as the vitality of the seed, condition of the surface soil, condition of the subsoil as to moisture, the method of sowing, weather conditions at the time of sowing or immediately after, also the natural fertility of the soil and the bacterial life present, or at least the conditions for propagating or sustaining bacterial life. With land prepared by sowing a few pounds of seed six months or a year preceding, with a heavy application of stable manure plowed under six months before, perfect soil preparation, normal moisture, and clean seed, testing ninety per cent germinable, there should be no need for more than ten pounds to the acre. Disking that the field should have later will split the crowns and many new stalks will be sent up; so that in a few years a square foot of surface will not accommodate more than six to ten robust, vigorous plants, and having these the ideal stand has pretty nearly been attained. One plant has been known to send out as many as 360 branches from its single main root, resembling in form a spreading bush. A successful farmer in Geary county, Kansas, who has been raising alfalfa for twenty years, seldom sows more than six pounds of seed to the acre and never more than ten. A prominent Ohio farmer usually sows but ten, and never over twelve or fifteen pounds to the acre, although he has always introduced alfalfa bacteria into the soil one or two years before ready to give it a full seeding. Of strictly good seed, well cleaned, twelve pounds would likely be too much rather than too little, other conditions being right.

WITH OR WITHOUT A NURSE CROP?

The practice of sowing a nurse crop with alfalfa was inaugurated when the nature of the plant was not as well understood as now. It was also somewhat on the theory too that “a half-loaf is better than no bread.” It began when there was a good deal of doubt about “getting a stand,” and the farmer thought no doubt that a crop of oats or barley would pay for the plowing even if the alfalfa failed. While the practice is continued by many, the prevalent later method is to provide no nurse crop. Few who have abandoned the nurse crop have returned to it. The alfalfa plant does not need protection from the sun, nor is it bettered by dividing any of the soil moisture or fertility with those of another crop. On the other hand, if alfalfa is sowed in the spring, it is important that it obtain an early start in order that its roots can quickly work their way down into the moisture of the subsoil, against the dry days of July and August. When a nurse crop of any vigor is removed the alfalfa plants are likely to be found weak, spindling and with little root growth; the nurse crop also has taken up some of the soil nitrogen needed by the young alfalfa; or if the nurse crop is heavy and has lodged, there will be left bare spots, where the alfalfa has been smothered out.

Cutting the nurse crop is likely to be attended with no little damage to the tender alfalfa plants by trampling their crowns into the ground, or by breaking them off. Practically all the experiment stations favor sowing alone. With few exceptions the second and third years have brought heavier yields where no nurse crop was used. The theory that the nurse crop will prevent the weeds choking the alfalfa is apparently, as a rule, not well founded. In the first place alfalfa should not be sown on foul land, and in the second place proper disking and harrowing, at near intervals for four or six weeks before sowing, will disturb or kill far more weeds than can any nurse crop. Besides, the oats or barley sown as a nurse will when cut leave weeds in good growth, or dormant and ready to spring up as fast or faster than the alfalfa. No nurse crop is ever used with fall sowing. When ground has been thoroughly prepared for the preceding crop, and then properly cared for, and made ready for the alfalfa by the preliminary weed destruction, it will be found advisable to sow alfalfa alone, even in the spring.

INOCULATING THE SOIL

It has been found where alfalfa shows thrifty vigor, is making a good stand, and is at least two years old, that on the roots are little nodules or wart-like protuberances. On fields where the alfalfa is unthrifty or failing to make a good stand, examination will probably fail to discover any of these nodules. Scientists tell us that these nodules are the homes of bacteria, microscopic vegetable organisms obtaining their sustenance from the nitrogen of the air and the starch of the plant; that they collect much more nitrogen than they need, the over-supply being taken up by the alfalfa, which, after these nodules are formed and occupied, takes no more nitrogen from the soil, but annually stores about its roots more from the air, thus adding to the nitrogen supply in the soil instead of taking from it as do all other farm crops except the legumes. Each legume—clover, alfalfa, cowpeas, etc.—has a distinct species of bacteria, or at least bacteria with a distinct development, excepting, as has been found, that Sweet clover (Melilotus alba) and Bur clover (Medicago denticulata) develop the same species as does alfalfa.

BUYING INFECTED SOIL

Several methods of preparing land for alfalfa by introducing its peculiar bacteria have been suggested, and practiced to some extent. Many farmers and experimenters have used with success infected soil upon their lands; soil from established alfalfa fields, or that from along the roads or creeks where the Sweet clover or Bur clover has been growing. This soil is spread upon the field or sown with alfalfa just before the seeding. If the drill is to be used the inoculated soil is spread on and harrowed in. If the seed is to be broadcasted, the infected soil may be harrowed in with the seed. It is better, however, to harrow this infected soil in thoroughly before seeding. Experiment stations recommend an application of two hundred pounds of such soil to every acre, but good results have been secured from half that quantity. This will depend very much upon the nature of the soil, and the subsoil especially. Many fields seem to have these bacteria waiting for the coming of alfalfa. Land that has been well manured and contains abundant humus, and land that is light and friable will usually respond to the bacterial life attached to the alfalfa seed. Most farmers who have established fields will sell soil to their neighbors, which should be from the top six or eight inches, and include roots, stubble and earth. Both Sweet clover and Bur clover are found in almost every neighborhood in the northern states, while the latter is very general in the South.

Some alfalfa raisers make a business of selling and shipping inoculated soil. Probably any experiment station will ship small quantities to farmers within its state, at about the cost of digging, sacking and delivering at the railroad station. Therefore, if a farmer desires to use it, little labor or expense is attached to doing so. There is reason, however, to doubt the need of this method in any of the western or central western states where the suggestions mentioned in the first part of the chapter are closely followed. No doubt there are advantages in using it in most states east of the Mississippi river, in order to hasten the development of the bacteria and to make a good stand more certain. Preparation one or two years in advance as already described, by a light sowing of alfalfa seed for introducing its peculiar bacteria, is less expensive, and requires less labor and carries no risk of introducing the seeds of other clovers or weeds. Most farms have enough weed seeds already.

DANGERS OF INOCULATION BY SOIL TRANSFER

Touching upon the dangers possibly resulting from inoculation by soil transfer a bulletin from the United States Department of Agriculture has this to suggest:

“Satisfactory inoculations have been obtained by transferring soil from old fields on which the legume has been grown, but experience has shown that there are dangers incident to such methods of soil transfer which it is wise to avoid.

“The source of supply of such soil should be definitely known, and in no case should soil be used from fields which have previously borne any crop affected with a fungous disease, a bacterial disease, or with nematodes. Where a rotation of crops is practiced, it is often difficult to make sure of this factor, so that the method of soil transfer is, under average circumstances, open to suspicion, if not to positive objection. Numerous animal and plant parasites live in the soil for years, and are already established in so many localities that it is manifestly unwise to ship soil indiscriminately from one portion of the country to another.

“The bacterial diseases of the tomato, potato, and egg plant, and the club-root, brown rot, and wilt disease of the cabbage, all more or less widely distributed, are readily transmitted in the soil; while in the South and West there are the wilt diseases of cotton, melons, sweet potatoes, cowpeas, and flax, and various nematoid and root-rot diseases which might easily become a serious menace over areas much larger than they now occupy if deliberately spread by the careless use of soil for inoculation purposes. There are several insects and fungous diseases of clover to be avoided, and various diseases of beans and peas. There is also a disease of alfalfa, the ‘leaf spot,’ which is causing damage in some regions. These are only a few of many diseases liable to be transmitted in soils. The farmer should therefore be on his guard. The danger from such sources is by no means imaginary. The Department of Agriculture has had specific cases of such accidental distribution reported, and if the business of selling soil for inoculation is made to flourish by farmers purchasing without question ‘alfalfa soil,’ ‘cowpea soil,’ etc., there is every reason to believe that experience will demonstrate the folly of such haphazard methods.

“Of scarcely less importance is the danger of disseminating noxious weeds and insect pests through this plan of inoculation by means of soils. Even though weeds may not have been serious in the field, the great number of dormant seeds, requiring but a slight change in surroundings to produce germination, is always a menace. The enormous damage to crops caused by introduced insects and weeds should convey a warning and lead to caution. It is not the part of good judgment to view the risk as a slight one.”

OTHER METHODS OF INOCULATION

There are two or three better ways of inoculating land than by using a neighbor’s soil. Some alfalfa raisers recommend the sowing of alfalfa meal with the seed. Another plan which appears reasonable and practicable is for the farmer who wishes to introduce alfalfa to buy alfalfa hay the year before and feed it to his live stock; then haul the manure to the fields and plow it under for the crop to precede alfalfa. It is claimed by those who have done this that a satisfactory stand is well-nigh certain, other conditions being met. It can be said, however, that some high authorities on this crop, men who have experimented on many different kinds of soil and who have succeeded under varying conditions, declare that neither soil nor seed inoculation is necessary. It is altogether probable that if a field has been well farmed for a few years previous to the alfalfa-sowing, with unusually good cultivation the preceding year, a heavy application of stable manure plowed under at least five months before, then given the proper preparation and seeding, using seed raised in about the same latitude and under similar conditions in which the new crop must grow, and with seed testing ninety per cent germinable, there should be little anxiety about the need of inoculation. Of course old, worn-out land may require more fertilizers, restoring to the soil not only necessary nitrogen that has been exhausted by other crops, but also the potash and phosphorus. In eastern states it has been found advantageous also to apply a very light top-dressing of stable manure just before sowing the seed. If lime is deficient, that must be applied. An examination of any particular soil will usually be made without charge by the state chemists, and the farmer may thus approximately ascertain just what the soil will need for alfalfa, corn, or any other crop he may desire to raise.

KEEP ON TRYING

It is important to say to the eastern farmers, especially, that there is little difference between successful alfalfa-growing and the successful growing of other crops. Poor farming never brings big crops, nor will poor land produce as big yields as the more fertile. Failure to restore to the soil the necessary elements of which it has been robbed means the same in New York, Kansas, Virginia, or anywhere else. Every farm plant, to prosper, must find in the soil, readily available, the elements needed for its development. If a farmer finds the soil lacking in elements needed for certain crops, he should either apply the deficiency or not attempt their raising. This is true of corn or wheat, cotton, or tobacco, no less than alfalfa.

Alfalfa needs especially nitrogen, potash and phosphorus. The average virgin soil in the United States contains enough of these to last several hundred years. If there had been at all times an intelligent rotation of crops, these chemical elements would be found in just as large proportions in the soil that has been farmed a hundred years as in the soil never cultivated. Hence, if after trying alfalfa a man meets with failure, he should not stop, and say, “Alfalfa won’t grow ‘here’,” but try it again immediately. If he discovers a seeming failure in March or April, he should disk and harrow and as early as possible sow about ten pounds of seed to the acre; in many instances he will have to clip his alfalfa in about six or eight weeks and can mow a crop of hay in September, or possibly two hay crops in the season. There have been various cases reported where three hay crops were secured the first season after such cultivation, when the fields had been pronounced a failure in March. Alfalfa may be sown on such ground as late as the first of June if the weeds have been thoroughly subdued. Or, if it has been sown in the spring and the weeds seem to be overtopping it in July, mow close to the ground, rake into windrows and burn. Then disk and harrow thoroughly and sow again. In all probability there will be something of a crop to mow early in September, with a considerable autumn growth to follow. If it is not desired to sow alfalfa in midsummer, disk this ground and sow to rye or oats for pasture; then late in August disk and put in readiness for September sowing. The failure may have been because the soil had not enough bacteria, or favorable environment for the bacteria. Some of the seed sowed at first undoubtedly germinated and some bacteria were developed; enough certainly to prepare the soil for the second sowing. It is unwise after such a failure to go to another field or to wait for another year. It is wiser to meet the conditions at once, and vigorously persevere.

In reference to the application of lime, mentioned on a preceding page, it should be noted that the later experiments seem to indicate that it is better to apply smaller quantities at shorter intervals than larger quantities at longer intervals; also that air-slacked lime is less caustic than the quicklime, and not so liable, when recently applied, to harm the young plants which may come in contact with it, hence more of the former may be used and with greater safety. Ordinarily quicklime is considered the most beneficial.

Bur Clover Pod

Magnified six diameters

Yellow Trefoil Seed Pod

Magnified twelve diameters

Alfalfa Seed Pod

Magnified six diameters