674 ANNUAL. REPORT* OF THE . Off. Doc. 



''The nutritive ratia of alfalfa is 1 to 31; the relation of crude pro- 

 tein of alfalfa hay to that of red clover is as 11 to 7. During one 

 year three crops, amounting to 3.8 tons per acre, contained 1G7 lbs. 

 nitrogen, 31 lbs. phosi)horic acid, 194 ttxs., 100 libs, potash and 152 

 lbs. of lime, or about |36.00 worth of fertilizer, not counting anything 

 for the lime. By raising alfalfa the farmer not only provides an 

 excelJent quality as well as a large quantity of forage for his domes- 

 tic stock, but he is at the same time enriching his fields with a fertili- 

 zer which, if purchased i^ the market, would cost a great deal of 

 money." 



The next thing and most important is selecting the foundation or 

 location. Alfalfa is a deep feeder; it cannot stand with water on 

 the surface for any considerable length of time, but must have soil 

 moisture and will go almost to any depth to get it provided the sub 

 soil is not to tight that it cannot get through. We have a great 

 deal of just such soil in this valley which w^as once an old ocean bed, 

 and in many places the soil was formed by material which it carried 

 and deposited in places to great depths, always putting down the 

 coarser materials first and covering them with lighter, until finally 

 the waters receded and left a very deep formation, something like 

 this first, stones worn smooth and round, next pebbles with shells, 

 then sand and clay. 



In addition to this, along both sides of this old bed by some great 

 drying or cooling process, was formed two great fissures into which 

 ran the molten flint until it fllled them up. Down this formation 

 I have seen the common locust root for a distance of 30 feet. Who 

 ever heard of our flint land becoming water-logged at the surface or 

 lacking soil moisture very near to the surface even in the severest 

 drouth? Again, along the margin of the clays and extending for 

 varying distances away from and higher than they, are shales which 

 have become partly disintegrated for a depth of from 3 to 6 feet, 

 immediately beneath which run reefs and streams of soil water, 

 which in times of protracted rain break out along the margin of the 

 clay and form what we call wet weather springs. In any of these 

 places we might reasonably expect to find a suitable location for 

 alfalfa. How may we find them? Well, by the pick and shovel is 

 a very sure way, though we may be guided greatly by the kind of 

 plants which grow on them; for instance the wild morning-glory 

 is a deep feeder and will not grow on a very shallow soil. If you 

 have ever dug one of them out you have some idea of how hard a 

 soil a plant will force its roots through. 



Having selected our variety and a proper location, the rest of the 

 case becomes easy; in fact the growing of clover only differs in 

 about two essentials from the growing of any other crop: The first 

 is, preparing a suitable seed bed, and the other having a soil in which 

 soil bacteria can live and multiply. By a seed bed w^e mean pulver- 

 ized earth packed to such an extent that moisture from the sub-soil 

 will rise into it, in order to retain a seed bed it is necessary to have 

 it covered with pulverized earth so loose that moisture will not 

 rise into it to be draw-n out by the sun and lost. How tight or 

 how loose each should be depends entirely on the amount of mois- 

 ture you are going to have in the soil on the day you sow the seed, 

 bet-ause when the ground is soaking wet it will rise through looser 



