F.D. COBURN Book At Ge a Copyright N° IF OG COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. NK ee < oes Bi FACET pe * Pes kD eM es ee > apt 4 4 [t 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 ** * *® Shanish 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. —Joaguin Miller. By F. D.. COBURN Secretary Kansas Department of Agriculture Thutrated 1906 ORANGE JUDD COMPANY New York LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received Copyright, 1906 by ORANGE JUDD COMPANY New York 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 RIGHT- EOUSLY 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 zo 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 AIRS AND RAINS OF HEAVEN FIND THEIR WAY, AND HELP TO CONSTITUTE AN UNFAIL- ING 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 liber- ate 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 pre- sented 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 main- stay 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 tacts 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 commen- dations 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 sub- ject 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 com- pelled 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 prov- inces 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 ques- tion 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 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 reg- istered 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 Table of Contents Page Introductory é : ‘ oh NL The Author’s Boeara 5 : : > x CHAPTER I History, Description, Varieties and Habits . : I CHAPTER II Universality of Alfalfa : ; 3 ‘ 13 CHAPTER III Yields, and Comparisons with other Crops ; 20 CHAPTER IV Seed and Seed Selection : ; : 27 CHAPTER V Soil and Seeding : ‘ ; ; 4 44 CHAPTER VI Cultivation ; : : : : : 67 CHAPTER VII Harvesting ; : ‘ ; ‘ ; 79 CHAPTER VIII Storing : : 4 : : é 93 CHAPTER IX Pasturing and Soiling : ; : 107 CHAPTER X Alfalfa as a Feed Stuff : P oan F CHAPTER XI re in Beef-Making : ° 51.2838 CHAPTER XII Alfalfa and the Dairy ‘ P : Phage 7 i} be CHAPTER XIII Alfalfa for Swine CHAPTER XIV Alfalfa for Horses and Mules CHAPTER XV Alfalfa and Sheep Raising CHAPTER XVI Alfalfa and Bees CHAPTER XVII Alfalfa and Poultry CHAPTER XVIII Alfalfa Food Preparations CHAPTER XIX Alfalfa for Town and City CHAPTER XX Alfalfa in Crop Rotation CHAPTER XXI Nitro-Culture CHAPTER XXII Alfalfa as a Commercial Factor CHAPTER XXIII The Enemies of Alfalfa CHAPTER XXIV Difficulties and Discouragements CHAPTER XXV Miscellaneous . CHAPTER XXVI Alfalfa in Different States 154 165 171 175 180 182 187 189 196 204 206 220 223 231 List of Iflustrations Page EDP MOOWUN otal i Moule |Z) Resin oe, hares Frontispiece A Typical Altalia Plant. -.. ; Gis I Typical Stems and Foliage of the Alfalfa Plant I Crown of Plant Shown in the Preceding Illus- oO’ tration J ERS PEAR S10 An Eight-year-old Alfalfa Plant a) lui a eae 6 Alfalfa Blossoms Enlarged . . . . 7 Intergrading Types of Seed Between Alfalfa and) sweet, Clover) )..c(?. A ee Seeds of the Weed Known as Backhoe raaP Se hy Alfalfa Seeds Magnified Five Diameters . . 13 Sweet Clover—Alfaifa—Yellow Trefoil . . 26” Three Distinctive Types of Alfalfa Seed Mag- mined | A welvel “amesy Shr 7) aa ley Page ee meer reroll Fads 1S i) Scr aie’. te cher cen SRS Peta OPER OE GUS) 5 fli rt a A Rl eS ad Be mare Clover teed Bods: 46 yoga la) 6 bs Va es 33 Sweet Clover Pods . . . PR Re | Three General Types of Alfalfa Seed Ora twas: © Pinader Seed Macnified 0) 8/3000.) ba ie Le 45 Pride seed Mamnsteds ou is rek0 ay ke de) en SAS Dodder Plant on an Alfalfa Stem . . ou taee Alfalfa and Dodder Seed. (Actual Size) SR Ag Dedder i (Cuscuta avicwis)) a. jae ee ee A Dodder (Cuscuta epithymum) . . . . 47 x - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, Peculiar Nodules in Groups on Small Rootlets Alfalfa Roots Showing Normal Nodules Gathering Alfalfa Hay into Windrows with a Side-delivery Horserake Cutting a Fine Field of Alfalfa Alfalfa Harvesting Scene in Yellowstone County, Montana Gathering an Alfalfa Crop in Pare Coaiy, Iowa : A Derrick Stacker Mast and Boom Stacker, with Six- ea ae son Fork : Box Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Stes Lattice Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Cattle Box Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to Cattle Lattice Rack for Feeding Alfalfa to ati Alfalfa Field in New Jersey A Second Cutting of Alfalfa (July 28) in Shawnee County, Eastern Kansas Steers Eating Chopped Alfalfa and Corn Meal Mixed as Dorset Ewe Lambs in Alfalfa i in Ohio Showing Advantage of Early Fall Sowing Five-year-old Alfalfa Alfalfa One Year Old, Showing Effects af Inoculation A Good Type of a Four-year- bald Alfalfa Plant Alfalfa Plant and Roots Showing Bacteria Nodules Page 66 ° 67 78 | 79 92 92 a3 93 106 / 106 107 107 124° 125 138 139 154. 155 170 171 196 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi Suipercies on Clover RoOts i) 3 she a5 6) ie do EOP Em slOven ; POGis yeti os aN So not thy Le 2 200° Mellow. Fretoi: Seed: Pom 7505: ie. 58 > 2 206 RMP ECHO Dc 5 Pano bat. xin she tet ca 8 DOF mpatted Clover Pod (°°. <:: OSes hgh ae ee oe And There’s Still More to Fratton KERMGSNL GP Rae orf Pead. ‘Prairie Dogs’) 3) <<. 221 Pot Culture Experiments at Univcety of Illinois . . ce csneaos Six Months’ Growth of Alfalfa ‘Foliage BOCES Pe ST Putting up Alfalfa Hay . . . 250° The Hay-loader Picks the Crop up ‘Caan oa Chrricte le oS ose) oe 256 A Cable Derrick, Provided aa: a aie: Borkistses 3 Foes Pace Mela CREPE SE A 400-ton Rack of Alfalfa Nee Ste Saar Oe Mee ime rg Mmm ies homies) eR poe. Mr: odo tycoons St a ee BOS: Yellow Trefoil SPRAY yes Relay Sipe leat late ee Ve Pees siateeid amibaman me 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 J, 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 Na- ture’s most generous benefactions to husbandry and an important feature of a profitable agriculture. Its begin- ning 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 sus- taining all herbivorous animal life, and where, possibly, it too afforded the herbage which sustained Nebuchad- nezzar 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 continu- ously from its introduction. Some writers are disposed to aver that it was brought to Spain and France by the Roman soldiery under Cesar and early thereafter, but 2 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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 car- ried 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 luxu- riantly 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 agri- cultural people, nor by the early European settlers. It was not until about 1853 or 1854 that it was intro- duced into northern California, the legends say from Chili, but it had been grown by the Spaniards and HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, VARIETIES AND HABITS 3 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 plant- ing 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. | 4 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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 “Lu- zerne,” 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; Cultvated 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, Peren- nial 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 HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, VARIETIES AND HABITS 5 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 com- plete 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 re- planting 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. 6 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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, measur- ing 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 leav- ing 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 Interme- 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 HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, VARIETIES AND HABITS 7 diate Lucerne or Medicago media, the Yellow Lucerne or Medicago foliata and Turkestan alfalfa or Medicago sativa Turkestanica, None of these have such unquali- fied value as the ordinary alfalfa; in fact the first two are properly regarded as weeds when found with Medi- cago 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 hun- dred bushels of seed which was distributed to govern- ment stations and individual experimenters in forty- seven states and territories, The reports of its behav- ior 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 opin- ion at this time that the Turkestan alfalfa has not dem- onstrated 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. Among other claims for Turkestan alfalfa by the gov- ernment 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 advan- § THE BOOK OF ALFALFA tage 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 with- stand 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 differ- ences in climate and possibly of soil between Turkestan and New Mexico, or North Dakota, to admit of this variety’s becoming a pre-eminently 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 experi- menting on a small scale at stations in Arizona, Califor- nia 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 HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, VARIETIES AND HABITS 9 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, with- out 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 Spill- man 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 success- fully 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 yield- ing 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 iy Io THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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 irri- gated land in the state of Washington. I have heard of other men that produced twelve tons an acre in south- ern 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. “T 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 feed- -ing 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 high- est development of our modern agriculture. Alfalfa is HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, VARIETIES AND HABITS II 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. —t “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 some- time 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 12 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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 secre- tions of nectar fit for Jupiter to sip. It forms a partner- ship 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 advan- tage 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 grow- ing 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 A. 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 ter- ritory of the United States, and in Canada. Only two states, Maine and New Hampshire, and only one ter- ritory, Alaska, are left wholly in the experimental col- umn. 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, Connecti- cut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ar- kansas 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 en- terprising 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.” 14 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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 cut- tings 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 experi- mental 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 Igo1, 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 im- possible. 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 irriga- tion. J. H. Grisdale, agriculturist of the Central experi- mental 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 UNIVERSALITY OF ALFALFA 15 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 1go1 the Brit- ish consul at Buenos Ayres reported alfalfa as covering “an enormous area in Argentina, and every year becom- ing 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 the sea level, and in southern California it grows below sea level to a height of six feet or over, with nine cuttings a year, ag- gregating ten to twelve tons. An authenticated photo- graph in possession of the writer, reproduced on opposite page, shows a wonderful alfalfa plant raised in the (irri- gated) 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 ~~ 16 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA desert. The depleted cotton soils of Alabama and rich corn lands of Illinois and Missouri each respond gener- ously with profitable yields to the enterprising farmer, while its accumulated nitrogen and the sub-soiling it ef- fects 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 con- scienceless 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 gen- eral 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 im- provement 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 ex- perts 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 UNIVERSALITY OF ALFALFA ky and promises to continue indefinitely, yielding 4 1-2 tons from three cuttings a year, and the whole of it on gumbo soil where corn raising was a failure. An- other 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 wlll 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 meth- 18 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA ods 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 coun- try. 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 cut- ting so that the barn might be empty. Some other farm- ers 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 al- falfa sod anything but fun. This is one of the few ob- jections 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 ‘ex- pert’ that alfalfa cannot thrive on a hardpan subsoll, 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 UNIVERSALITY OF ALFALFA 19 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 major- ity 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 sur- vive but two years, while alfalfa will last from ten to one YIELDS AND COMPARISONS WITH OTHER CROPS 21 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 luxu- riant foliage before the second growth of clover has made any substautial 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. Plat No. Variety Grown Hay, lbs. | Yield per acre, lbs. I Me) C lowers acm crctereictaiwiaicin else 473 2,365 2 Mammoth Clover............. 475 2,375 3 PUISTEPAC 1OWETsateinielsntsialolesistatels's 413 2,065 4* Alfalfa (first cutting) 26 inches high, June 2gth....... 816 4,080 5 Ble rassyiic cosines to) alae to 575 2,875 6 Orchard @rassioies seis. dsj esse - 478 2,390 7 Timothy...... peste eleiaialataiststata/a\s 560 py de 8 PRGA EO areata celeia weloeaetole stale’ = 470 2,350 9 Meadow fescue...............- 375 1,875 Io Tall meadow oat grass......... 600 3,000 II Italian rye grass........ Nerina B 12t Timothy, blue-grass and orchard grass mixed......... 203 1,015 *The alfalfa piat yielded a second cutting 26 inches high on August 2nd, anda third 24 inches high September ist; there was also a six-inch after-growth estimated at 180 pounds. The total alfalfa yield was equivalent, “approximately to 6 1-2 tons of good dry forage.” None of the other clovers or grasses gave more than one cutting. + Robbed somewhat of both plant food and moisture by an adjacent row of grown cottonwood trees. 22 “THE BOOK OF ALFALFA - The Nebraska experiment station has made very care- ful 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, lbs. Alfalfa, lbs. Dyn Matterieicicisis|ele\ala'eis/= cee sioacccese 3,605 5,611 PAB iM OIGS os oteic\oieialaialaia/oialeielela\atalelsiaini= 296 1,198 Starch TOUpATS ELCs a inisicteiis ele siuleleiaial sia 2,186 3,114 OLDE leratelalelaferstatetevelele eievote Gieieteloleielelat tetas 1,060 1,198 Hate. < siels ciejeeeiricis clon visicinecicesisevesise 63 Iol 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: _ YIELDS AND COMPARISONS WITH OTHER CROPS 23 @ hay crops, 30 toms at $12..226.2 5.4%. $360 ros bushels of seed at $6....:....)..3... 630 PGMs aie aCe ka et Lt ote 50 Fourth cutting 12 tons at $12.......... 144 Hotalone year's returins:!}!). 5°02: $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 Kan- sas, of five cuttings, making 81% 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 IQOI 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, ee 5-7 tons of hay, 24 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA Alva Langston, of Henry county, Indiana, sowed five acres of alfalfa May 20th, and harvested nearly 11% 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 harvest- ing 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 cut- tings 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 en- tirely killed by disking in the dark of the moon,” espe- cially if the weather that follows is hot and dry. He past- ures his alfalfa with cattle and horses in fall and spring, and disks in the spring as soon as the stock is removed. YIELDS AND COMPARISONS WITH OTHER CROPS 25 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 4% 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. The Utah station reports a cattle feeding test (Bul. No. 61) in which 100 pounds of gain from feeding alfalfa hay cost $3.76; from timothy, $4.71, and from corn fodder, $6.21. 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 co him for feed for cattle, hogs or sheep from $10 to $12 per ton—practically two to 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 agricul- 26 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA ture. 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 mak- ing 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 magnitied five diameters and the trefoil seven diameters ‘paas vjley/e Ul Uses WO} OI}SIJa}OBIeYD sow 8U} S! Jazze] e4] ‘pazulod iejndue ajppilwW ay} ul suo ay} pue !padeys Aauply }Yysls ay} }e au ay} ‘papunol y4a| ay} ye aUO aul SOIT, WATEMIT, poyluse poss Bjejty jo sodA oarjourjsiq soy CHAPTER IT. 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 qual- ity 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, | 28 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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 avoid- ance 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 accli- mation, 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 south- ern 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: SEED AND SEED SELECTION 29 “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 for- get 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 ex- tremes 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 south- ern New Jersey, in Delaware and Maryland, the seed grown in southern Colorado and southern Kansas ought to do well. 30 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA Prof. H. M. Cottrell, formerly agriculturist of the Kansas experiment station, says: “One year I sowed 20 acres to alfalfa—i1g 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 east- ern 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 pref- erable, 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 SEED AND SEED SELECTION 31 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 short- age in other countries, considerable American seed goes abroad to Italy, France, Germany and Australia. The largest portion is consigned to Germany because exten- sive 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: Year. Lbs. WOGer Sites mya gees Le 1,018,559 EOOS As Ses e Tas Ais ae 2,200,267 32 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 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. Seeds- men 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 froin 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 send- ing 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 impuri- ties are those of Sweet clover, (Melilotus alba), Bur ciover, (Medicago denticulata), Spotted clover (Medi- cago Arabica), Yellow trefoil (Medicago lupulina) or Hop clover, and the Dodders (Cuscuta epithymum and Cuscuta arvensis). 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 inclosed in a cciled pod which is covered with bristly projections as shown above. Magnified four diameters. SEED AND SEED SELECTION 33 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: Seeds used as adulterants. Sweet City where bought clover Bur clover Yellow trefoil Total adulterants Per Cent Per Cent Providence, R.I.............. “Ane 3-47 WER VET,NCOlO sso. sieratels « cieioaers aferate 10.86 BROCMESEET: Nee Nic (ols siefoe cine oiuie'e are 5.02 Milwaukee, Wis.............. 5 Aon 5-74 Indianapolis, Ind............. aerate 4:27 See ieratelelelole 36 wale ees 3-90 Marblehead, Mass............. Seles 3-00 TRETEYSDHT 2s Vsiie's'sis(0\0 c'cie's «se © spe BIBS ssatere Cedar Rapids, Iowa........... SBS 5-49 Indianapolis, Ind.............. ster Ebay Pattsheld)\ Masses. 5 <'<..ccies's sss OSDS pipe cabins MD NeRe a teh) Ge