13 



c'ffectivo for any field cro]!, that crop will be alfalfa. 

 AVhile few fanners ownini;' land valued only at 

 $15 or |25 per acre will be found at present willinii, to 

 make the large expenditure necessary for tile drainage, 

 this investment will doubtless be found feasible on cer- 

 tain stiff bottom lands, otherwise peculiarly- adaptcnl to 

 alfalfa, especially as these lands advance in price because 

 of their suitability to alfalfa. The establishment of tile 

 factories in the south, or the co-operative purchase of tile 

 machines would so greatly cheapen the cost of file drain- 

 age as to make it practicable for alfalfa fields and other 

 land farmed intensivelv. 



Alfalfa should endure for many years. One of our 

 correspondents has alfalfa plants seventeen years old 

 gTOwiug on prairie land, if a field of alfalfa, free from 

 disease and from excessive growth of weeds, begins to 

 fail Avhen only a few years old, deficient drainage may be 

 suspected. Alfalfa is usually spoken of as needing an 

 open soil. AVhile permeability is desirable, yet in Ala- 

 bama the soils to which it has thus far proved best adapt- 

 ed are lime soils of close texture. 



I'ltAIIUK SOILS. 



Taking up the different soils somewhat in the order of 

 their proved or probable fitness for alfalfa we must deal 

 first with the Central Prairie Region of Alabama, extend- 

 ing from Union Springs in a northwest direction past 

 Montgomery, Selma, Uniontown, Dpmopolis, and Living- 

 ston, and into Mississippi. In this region a few very 

 small patches of alfalfa were grown man}' years ago. So 

 far as I can learn, Capt. J. C. Webb, of Demopolis, was 

 the first one in that part of the State to grow alfalfa on 

 any considerable scale. One of his earliest plantings was 

 made on a shallow gray soil underlaid near the surface 

 with white rotten limestone. This field lav next to the 



