19 



of potash. An effort was made to inoculate tlie seed, 

 but this was not entirely successful. 



A good stand of plants was found on all plots the lat- 

 ter part of the following- March and the early part of 

 April, when different nitrogenous fertilizers were ap- 

 plied to these plots as shown in the next table. 



Alfalfa made extremely poor growth in 1901 on the 

 plots receiving no manure. On all plots, weeds, leaf rust, 

 a; sclerotial dij«ease of the roots, and perhaps nitrogen 

 starvation, killed the larger part of the plants. The lime 

 and the stable manure plots suft'ered least and kept the 

 best stands. No plot made a yield worth harvesting separ- 

 ately. October 7, 1901, without i)lowing, an additional 

 amount of seed was disced in on all plots. 



Again in the ph(niomenally dry summer of 1902, the 

 alfalfa on most plots did not yield enough hay to justify 

 raking it up. However, the plots were clipped four 

 times in 1902— :May 6, June 17, Sept. 13, and October 

 10. On the best plots, those to which stable manure had 

 been applied about 15 months before, and which were 

 now reduced by disease and dry weather to a mere frac- 

 tion of a stand, the yield was only about one ton of hay 

 for the entire season. The extreme drought of 1902, 

 extending practically from the middle of April to Aug- 

 ust, will be recalled by most readers. 



In the summer of 1902, the poorest plots of alfalfa 

 were plowed up and planted in New Era cow peas in 

 drills. These made slight growth, but were kept clean 

 by late cultivation. The plots then plowed up as being 

 the poorest were those which 18 months before had re- 

 ceived per acre either 200 pounds of nitrate of soda or 

 500 pounds of cotton seed meal or no fertilizer. 



September 13, 1902, inoculated alfalfa seed, 20 lbs. 

 to the acre, were sown on these plots, first running a 



