LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 401 



THE PEOSPECT. 



It is early in time to predict the outlook for farming on the plains. Per- 

 haps in the immediate future the best results will be reached by stock farm- 

 ing, sheep and wool, dairying and stock raising. In other words, to accumu- 

 late in the soil as much of the products of air and soil as possible, only selling 

 off the high-priced products, wool, butter, beef. When these lands are 

 brought to such a state that they will produce enough forage to winter our 

 stock, with summer folding on the fields, the road to successful farming on 

 the plains is open. 



Prest. Willits: Will Dr. Kedzie tell us something about the qualities of 

 alfalfa? 



Dr. Kedzie : The roots of alfalfa are peculiarly long and branching, and 

 the plant itself stools very freely. In analysis, it is a little better for feed 

 than red clover. 



Capt. Barker: I have grown one-sixteenth acre of alfalfa for eight years, 

 and it has stood the climate beautifully, and this summer, in same field with 

 clover, Timothy, red-top, etc., the grasses were all a perfect failure, and the 

 alfalfa was knee high, and green and luxuriant. 



Prest. Willits: Alfalfa is a perennial that grows on for 15 years, and then 

 is as good as ever. In California, they say that it gets roots 15 feet long. 

 If so, it can keep itself in water. 



Capt. Barker: My alfalfa is mixed with other grasses, and was not killed 

 by plowing. 



Mr. Steckert : I have grown it elsewhere, and it was cut three or four 

 times per year, but was not esteemed very highly as hay. 



Dr. Kedzie: Our seed came from Thorburn, and cost nine dollars per 

 hundred weight, and is a little smaller than clover seed. 



Mr. Gridley: In Colorado, it is six dollars per bushel. 



Mr. Steckert : In importing seed from Germany, the way charges, besides 

 original cost, were eight dollars per bushel. 



Dr. Kedzie: Sow about as much per acre as of clover. Sow spurry much 

 lighter per acre than clover. It is about six dollars per hundred weight. It 

 seeds itself, and becomes a weed on rich or heavy soils. It ripened its seed 

 here in three months, last summer. It is not perennial, but is annual. I 

 wish to recall your, attention to the winter vetch, which to my mind is the 

 most promising of all forage plants. It is equal to clover for forage or green 

 manure. It is a biennial, as is clover. 



Dr. Niles: Will fall frosts hurt any of these plants? 



Dr. Kedzie: They will hurt millet, but not hungarian. Spurry and 

 vetch will be somewhat hurt by them. jH 



Dr. Palmer: On the experimental plats, spurry and vetch stood the best 

 of any of the plants named — better than either of the clovers, until the first 

 hard freeze. 



Capt. Barker: A farmer in Cheboygan county received some spurryT and 

 vetch seed from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and sowed it in his 

 front yard, and they both stood the winter as well as clover. 



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