No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 375 



A Nebraska test showed that pork produced by feeding corn and 

 wheat bran cost $3.75 per hundred. By feeding corn alone it cost 

 $2.97^ and by feeding corn and alfalfa the cost was $2.62 per hun 

 dred. The same station reports the results of feeding steers on 

 three different rations. The first class was fed corn and prairie 

 hay and gave a profit of thirty-eight cents per head. The second 

 class was fed on corn, oil meal and corn stover, and gave a profit of 

 $6.53 per head. The third class was fed alfalfa and corn, and gave 

 a profit of |8.66 per head. About once a month I have an oppor- 

 tunity of seeing a carload or two of horses brought to our market 

 from Nebraska, Dakota, Kansas and Colorado, that have had no 

 feed since their weaning but alfalfa and corn. I have never seen 

 more superbly developed horses in this State. 



Thus it appears that milk, beef and pork can be produced more 

 cheaply with alfalfa and corn than with our present expensive feeds. 

 Tlie question that now comes to us from every part of the State is, 

 Can alfalfa be produced here, and how? My own experience has 

 been limited to two sowings. Though successful, I do not base my 

 conclusions on this. My observation of the experiences of others, 

 each under conditions quite different from my own and from one 

 another, leads me to believe that on a large majority of Pennsylva-_ 

 nia farms alfalfa can be successfully grown. In a careful examina- 

 tion of many farms throilghout three-fourths of the State, I have 

 not found one containing more or less soil suitable to alfalfa. 

 In some of them such soil is very limited in area, there being possi- 

 bly not more than tw^o or three acres, in others, one-half or all the 

 land being adapted to the plant. This fact, together with the im- 

 portance of its possession, must be my excuse for introducing the 

 subject in this connection, and should be the farmers' incentive to 

 the most patient and painstaking efforts to produce it. The produc- 

 tion of from four to six tons per acre of a food worth so many tons 

 of wheat bran, and that with the corn our farmers can raise will 

 constitute a healthful and efficient ration for all live stock, and 

 at the same time double the producing power of the rest of the soil, 

 is an object worthy of our highest efforts. 



Since the publication, by our Department, of Bulletin 129, on 

 "Alfalfa Culture in Humid Lands," by Mr. Wing, it is not nec- 

 essary for me to consume much time in .giving directions for its 

 culture. I limit myself to the briefest statement of the conditions 

 of its growth. 



A second bottom six or eight feet above the high water level is 

 usually the best, especially if it be an alluvial soil. The subsoil 

 should be easily permeable by the roots, not necessarily a loose 

 gravel, but such as can be readily cut with a spade. The surface 

 should be thoroughly enriched with stable manure. If the soil be 

 clay, coarse manure should be turned in with deep plowing late in 

 the fall. If underlaid with a solid subsoil, a subsoil plow should 

 follow the turning-plow. As soon as conditions will permit in the 

 spring, another application of well rotted stable manure should be 

 made and well harrowed in. This soil and manure should be as 

 clear of weed seed as possible, especially of the finer grasses, such 

 as fox-tail and knot grass, for no other plant is so easily destroyed 

 by weeds ag i? tfee young alfalfa. Lime must now be applied as for 



