No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 763 



half and half for a year or so. That will help to inoculate and there 

 would be something to do, and they don't quarrel at all. 



A Member: Do you use commercial fertilizer? 



MR. WING: No, have'nt used over 4 tons in fifteen years on the 

 farm. 



A Member: Do you use common clover as a nurse crop? 



MR. WING: No, I wouldn't. For a nurse crop I said we had 

 barley the first year, and seeded without a nurse crop along later in 

 the summer after discing the land. 



A Member: Do you sow on a wheat field? 



MR. WING: We sow every way. You can sow on a field such 

 as a wheat field and your land should be plowed and it must be 

 disced. The seed must be put in the ground. 



A Member: How do vou sow it? 



MR. WING: We ordinarily sow with a drill and let it go in front 

 of the drill holes. Just put it in the grass department and let it go 

 in front of the drill holes so that it will become covered slightly. 



A Member: Do you pasture? 



MR, WING: Yes, we pasture it with all kinds of stock. There is 

 a little danger in pasturing cattle or sheep. It may be done, but I 

 think here in Pennsylvania you would be safer to pasture with the 

 cattle and sheep. They are pretty valuable here. Witli hogs or 

 with horses there is no danger. I wouldn't pasture at this stage 

 very much while you have the difficulty you now have in starting it, 

 because the tramping of the ground is not good for it. It will not do 

 at all. I believe I wouldn't pasture very much until you get a better 

 stand. 



A Member: Do you allow the nurse crop of barley to get ripe? 



MR. WING: Yes. Sometimes sow oats and cut that for hay, 

 but oat hay is one of the hardest kinds of hay I know of to cure; 'it 

 is likely to be neglected and if it goes too long it will not do right. 

 I believe I would just use that barley first, or else cut out the nurse 

 crop. 



REMARKS BY GOVERNOR HOARD. 



This alfalfa question is a big one. I have been growing alfalfa in 

 Wisconsin for ten years. Indeed it might be said, like Mr. Wing, 

 that I was the pioneer of it in that state. It had been tried in a 

 fugitive way here and there by men who said it could not be grown. 

 I found on a farm that was near me roots that were thirty years 

 old. I thought that would answer sufficiently. I believed I could 

 grow alfalfa if I knew enough about it. I readily saw that in that 

 climate it had to be handled with peculiar understanding. For 

 instance, we get the mercury 40 degrees below zero. I took about 

 25 or 30 city lots, varying in all kinds of soil from a blue clay resi- 

 dium sub-soil, black soil, up to sandy soil. Heavy clay, clay 30 



