710 Geasses and Leguminous Crops in New York 



machine. Headden, of the Colorado Experiment Station, esti- 

 mates the value of the stubble plowed under, with perhaps 6V2 

 inches of roots, at about $20 per acre, and of the stubble and 

 entire root system as not less than $35 per acre. 



ALFALFA HAS REVOLUTIONIZED WESTERN AGRICULTURE 



Kansas leads in alfalfa, with about 1,400,000 acres, and 

 Nebraska is a close second. Colorado and California, roughly 

 speaking, each have half as much ; Idaho and Utah, one-third; 

 and Montana and Oklahoma, one-fourth as much. 



From its advent into Kansas and Nebraska little more than 

 25 years ago, alfalfa has done more to project these states into the 

 center of the map and has sold more land at higher prices than 

 any other one growth, commodity, or influence. Raw lands, sup- 

 posedly unproductive, with almost no buyers before, and consid- 

 ered a burden at a $5 valuation, have been quick sales at $40, 

 $75, and sometimes $100' per acre when seeded to this wonderful 

 forage; others, although not by any means the best, have year 

 after year paid their owners 10 to 40 per cent on valuations of 

 $200 or more per acre. Since its coming, the tame hay output 

 of Kansas has increased in value from $2,800,000 to $34,607,185. 



Suggestive of its yields in hay and seed, a Garfield County, 

 Oklahoma, man harvested in a season, from 10 acres of three- 

 year-old unirrigated alfalfa, nine cuttings estimated as averaging 

 1^ tons each; the previous year the same land yielded seven cut- 

 tings, besides in each year an aftermath of eight to twelve inches. 

 A Kansas farmer near Topeka threshed 85 bushels of seed from 

 10 acres, which he sold for $935. From 8 acres, an Allen 

 Coimty farmer threshed 99 bushels of seed, which he sold for 

 $990. 



However, such a yield of hay under any conditions is most 

 extraordinary, and more than double what should be expected as 

 an average. Climatic conditions are seldom favorable to pro- 

 ducing profitable crops of seed east of the Missouri River. 



