1.02 ANNUAL ItKPdHT OF THE off !)..<• 



The SECRETARY: The labor of mastication would be naved, 

 and of course that would be something, and the amount of feed 

 after it was ground would be very much in its favor, wouldn't it? 



PROF. SHAW: It would bo somewhat, ye*. 



A Member: If a man was successful in raising clover to balanc* 

 his corn, would you still advise him In spend his time trying to 

 raise alfalfa, provided he had tried to raise alfalfa without sin- 

 cess? 



PROF. SHAW: I would, unless he had exhausted every reason- 

 able method for raising alfalfa, for this reason, that alfalfa has 

 some advantages over clover; it will produce more per annum as a 

 rule and it will stay in the ground, or ought to stay in the ground 

 for a number of years, and these are two important advantages it 

 has over red clover. 



MR. HUTCHISON: What experience have you had in inoculai 

 ing soil? 



PROF. SHAW: I will tell you one experience I had in Minnesota. 

 I had an opportunity to do this, to show alfalfa on a piece of land 

 on the first of May, and it grew fine. It was cut off a couple of 

 times in order to cut the weeds along with the alfalfa, and as it 

 was cut off, it was just allowed to lie on the ground in the form 

 of a mush, to about the first of September; that alfalfa then began 

 to pine, began to pine more and more as the autumn advanced. 

 Then I began to conclude that that ground needed inoculation, and 

 I said to the man, drive a couple of loads of our best farmyard 

 manure across that field, and the manure was put on, and the next 

 Spring that was the only part of that field in which the alfalfa was 

 worth the cutting, and in the month of June where that alfalfa 

 was, it was growing good and strong, and I found tubercles in abund- 

 ance in that alfalfa, on the roots of the plants. 



I do not think, gentlemen, I should detain you further in regard 

 to this question, but I do regret that we cannot get our farmers to 

 think more in regard to this thing than they do. I do not 

 refer to the farmers who come to the State Board of Agriculture, 

 or to Farmers' Institutes, but I do refer to that great mass of the 

 farming community. 



| was in the State of Indiana not long ago, and my heart was 

 cheered by the fact that 1,100 farmers of that State had been per 

 suaded to come out and spend a whole week to study questions per- 

 taining to corn and livestock, and I did conclude that the possi- 

 bility of bringing together such a meeting as that in one State 

 argues well for the future in the dispersion of knowledge throughout 

 the Commonwealth, and of lifting our farmers to a higher plane in 

 these United States. 



MR. HUTCHISON: I see in looking over our list of members, 

 that the Hon. John A. Woodward's time expires this year, and he 

 has not filed his credentials with the committee, but he has been 

 always an active member in attending our meetings and taking 

 part in our deliberations, and we all appreciate the work he has 

 been doing for agriculture; and now without consulting him at all I 

 would move that he be admitted as n member of fhe Board for the 



