STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 149 



ALFALFA AS A HORSE FEED. 



B. F. Johnson writes the " New York Tribune: " "Intelligent and obser- 

 vant horse men tell us the California two-year old thoroughbred is, as an 

 average, quite as well grown and as fully developed as the three-year old 

 of our side of the mountain. This, they say, is probably owing to the 

 mildness of the climate and a green forage all the year round, if needed, 

 that keeps a colt growing right along. These are, no doubt, good reasons, 

 but possibly they do not embrace all of them. Has it ever been sufficiently 

 considered whether the feeding of alfalfa (lucerne), green and dry, may not 

 have something to do with the rapid growth and size attained at an early 

 age ? We know there are no better pastures in the world for putting on fat 

 and flesh than those of Kentucky; where blue grass abounds, supported 

 by timothy and clover, red and white; and we know, too, that in spite of 

 all these advantges, Kentucky bred stock is losing in size and weight every 

 year, however it may gain in quality. And the same is, to a certain extent, 

 true of the blue grass, timothy, and clover pastures of 1^he entire blue grass 

 region west of the Alleganies and north of the Ohio River. In view of these 

 several facts, will it be worth while to try experiments with alfalfa and 

 learn by actual trial whether it may not do for eastern stock what it has 

 done for that of the Pacific Slope — given it the lead in fast and fine horses, 

 with other kinds of stock to be heard from later on?" 



In commenting on the above, the " Rural Press " says: " It will be a good 

 thing to try it, but one need not expect to reproduce at the East all the Cali- 

 fornia conditions which contribute to the rapid and magnificent develop- 

 ment of the animal merely by growing alfalfa. The fact of the matter is 

 that even alfalfa owes its excellence here to local climatic conditions which 

 cannot be transplanted. Alfalfa was grown in Central New York when we 

 were there fifteen years ago, but it was mighty poor alfalfa compared with 

 what grows here." 



