1906.] ALFALFA IN CONNECTICUT. 223 



of hiimiis, nitrogen, and perhaps also available mineral mat- 

 ters in them. 



It needs to be remembered, however, that there is a limit 

 to this nitrogen-gathering action of any legume. If a soil al- 

 ready contains a good supply of available nitrogen, a crop of 

 legumes will not add to that supply from the air, but will live 

 on the combined nitrogen already present in the soil. You 

 cannot go on forever catching nitrogen in your " nitrogen trap,'* 

 as some call it. The plant and the microbe have to be starved 

 into activity. 



REGARDING THE HARDINESS OF ALFALFA IN CONNECTICUT. 



We have grown it for five years at the Station with no 

 sign of winter-killing. Scattered plants of it still persist in 

 our turf ten years after the patch of alfalfa was plowed up and 

 cultivated. Here and there through the State I have found it 

 thriving in headlands and fence corners from seeding of un- 

 known date. But whether it will bear exceptionally cold win- 

 ters without being ruined or badly damaged as a farm crop 

 is more questionable. 



I have seen a half-acre on very sandy land but in a moist 

 place, which had yielded fairly well for seven years with al- 

 most no care. Another field of several acres on heavier soil 

 yielded very satisfactory for a longer time, but was so damaged 

 by the last two exceptionally cold winters that it was turned 

 under to be re-seeded to alfalfa after a year's cultivation to 

 subdue the grass which had come in. Of course, even rye is 

 sometimes badly winter-killed, but to make alfalfa profitable 

 we must hold it on the land for a term of years. Its value 

 is largely in its permanence. The land requires special prepa- 

 ration for it, the crop needs considerable care, compared with 

 other forage crops, during the first year of its growth, and the 

 reward comes in the permanence of the alfalfa, which must 

 yield two to four cuttings yearly of very valuable hay or green 

 fodder for a term of years with no more care than a permanent 

 meadow, if it is to pay. It has been grown long and success- 

 fully in the province of Quebec, in Canada, and it is now grown 

 in the British possessions north of us from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific, and is stated to be the staple forage for winter feeding 

 in the drier parts of British Columbia. Yet, on the other 

 hand, Fletcher, of the Ontario Experimental Farms, says that 



