Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Texts printed in italics and bold face have been transcribed between
_underscores_ and =equal signs= respectively. Small capitals have been
replaced with ALL CAPITALS.

More Transcriber’s Notes may be found 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._

“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

Page

The Author’s Foreword iv

Introductory v

CHAPTER I
History, Description, Varieties and Habits 1

CHAPTER II
Universality of Alfalfa 13

CHAPTER III
Yields, and Comparisons with other Crops 20

CHAPTER IV
Seed and Seed Selection 27

CHAPTER V
Soil and Seeding 44

CHAPTER VI
Cultivation 67

CHAPTER VII
Harvesting 79

CHAPTER VIII
Storing 93

CHAPTER IX
Pasturing and Soiling 107

CHAPTER X
Alfalfa as a Feed Stuff 125

CHAPTER XI
Alfalfa in Beef-Making 138

CHAPTER XII
Alfalfa and the Dairy 143

CHAPTER XIII
Alfalfa for Swine 154

CHAPTER XIV
Alfalfa for Horses and Mules 165

CHAPTER XV
Alfalfa and Sheep Raising 171

CHAPTER XVI
Alfalfa and Bees 175

CHAPTER XVII
Alfalfa and Poultry 180

CHAPTER XVIII
Alfalfa Food Preparations 182

CHAPTER XIX
Alfalfa for Town and City 187

CHAPTER XX
Alfalfa in Crop Rotation 189

CHAPTER XXI
Nitro-Culture 197

CHAPTER XXII
Alfalfa as a Commercial Factor 204

CHAPTER XXIII
The Enemies of Alfalfa 206

CHAPTER XXIV
Difficulties and Discouragements 220

CHAPTER XXV
Miscellaneous 223

CHAPTER XXVI
Alfalfa in Different States 231

Index 325

List of Illustrations

Page
1. F. D. Coburn _Frontispiece_
2. A Typical Alfalfa Plant 1
3. Typical Stems and Foliage of the Alfalfa Plant 1
4. An Eight-year-old Alfalfa Plant 6
5. Crown of Plant Shown in the Preceding Illustration 6
6. Alfalfa Blossoms Enlarged 7
7. Intergrading Types of Seed Between Alfalfa and Sweet Clover 12
8. Seeds of the Weed Known as Buck-horn 13
9. Alfalfa Seeds Magnified Five Diameters 13
10. Sweet Clover--Alfalfa--Yellow Trefoil 26
11. Three Distinctive Types of Alfalfa Seed Magnified Twelve Times 27
12. Yellow Trefoil Pods 32
13. Alfalfa Seed Pods 32
14. Sweet Clover Pods 33
15. Bur Clover Seed Pods 33
16. Yellow Trefoil: Black Medic: Hop Clover (_Medicago lupulina_) 37
17. Three General Types of Alfalfa Seed 44
18. Dodder Seed Magnified 45
19. Alfalfa Seed Magnified 45
20. Dodder Plant on an Alfalfa Stem 46
21. Dodder (_Cuscuta arvensis_) 47
22. Alfalfa and Dodder Seed (Actual Size) 47
23. Dodder (_Cuscuta epithymum_) 47
24. Bur Clover Pod 66
25. Yellow Trefoil Seed Pod 66
26. Alfalfa Seed Pod 67
27. Spotted Clover Pod 67
28. Gathering Alfalfa Hay into Windrows with a Side-delivery
Horserake 78
29. Cutting a Fine Field of Alfalfa 79
30. Gathering an Alfalfa Crop in Page County, Iowa 92
31. Alfalfa Harvesting Scene in Yellowstone County, Montana 92
32. Mast and Boom Stacker, with Six-tined Jackson Fork 93
33. A Derrick Stacker 93
34. Lattice Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Cattle 106
35. Box Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Sheep 106
36. Lattice Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Sheep 107
37. Box Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Cattle 107
38. Trocar and Cannula 119
39. Alfalfa Field in Central New York 124
40. Fourth Cutting of Alfalfa in Shawnee County, Kansas 124
41. A Second Cutting of Alfalfa (July 28) in Shawnee County,
Eastern Kansas 125
42. Kansas Farmer Viewing One of His Alfalfa Fields 138
43. Harvesting Alfalfa in Ohio 139
44. Showing Advantage of Early Fall Sowing 154
45. Five-year-old Alfalfa 155
46. Alfalfa One Year Old, Showing Effects of Inoculation 170
47. A Good Type of a Four-year-old Alfalfa Plant 171
48. Alfalfa Plant and Roots Showing Bacteria Nodules 196
49. Tubercles on Clover Roots 197
50. Peculiar Nodules in Groups on Small Rootlets 206
51. Alfalfa Roots Showing Normal Nodules 207
52. Gopher Poisoning Tool 214
53. And There’s Still More to Follow 220
54. Dead Prairie Dogs 221
55. Pot Culture Experiments at University of Illinois 230
56. Six Months’ Growth of Alfalfa Foliage 231
57. Cutting Alfalfa in Southern California 256
58. Baling Alfalfa in Southern Oklahoma 256
59. A 400-ton Rick of Alfalfa 257
60. A Cable Derrick, Provided with a Grapple Fork 257
61. Sweet Clover (_Melilotus alba_) 288
62. Yellow Trefoil (_Medicago lupulina_) 289

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

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.

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]

Stalks removed to show branching crown]

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.”

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

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]

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

-----+--------------------------------------------+-----+---------
| | | Yield
Plat| | Hay,|per acre,
No.| Variety Grown | lbs.| lbs.
-----+--------------------------------------------+-----+---------
1 |June Clover | 473 | 2,365
2 |Mammoth Clover | 475 | 2,375
3 |Alsike Clover | 413 | 2,065
4[1]|Alfalfa (first cutting) 26 inches high, June| |
|29th | 816 | 4,080
5 | Blue-grass | 575 | 2,875
6 | Orchard grass | 478 | 2,390
7 | Timothy | 560 | 2,800
8 | Red-top | 470 | 2,350
9 | Meadow fescue | 375 | 1,875
10 | Tall meadow oat grass | 600 | 3,000
11 | Italian rye grass |.... | ....
12[2]| Timothy, blue-grass and orchard grass mixed| 203 | 1,015
-----+--------------------------------------------+-----+---------

[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:

------------------------------------
Yield per acre of Corn and Alfalfa
-------------------+-------+--------
| Corn, |Alfalfa,
| lbs. | lbs.
-------------------+-------+--------
Dry Matter | 3,605 | 5,611
Albuminoids | 296 | 1,198
Starch, Sugar, etc.| 2,186 | 3,114
Fiber | 1,060 | 1,198
Fat | 63 | 101
-------------------+-------+--------

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:

2 hay crops, 30 tons at $12 $360
105 bushels of seed at $6 630
Straw 50
Fourth cutting, 12 tons at $12 144
------
Total, one year’s return $1,184

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.

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

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.