766 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



social ion, S00 men in Wisconsin scattered all over the state en- 

 gaged in the special study of alfalfa. Think what that moans to the 

 800 communities of Wisconsin. More than that, in Jefferson county 

 at the present time there are something in the neighborhood of 

 2,500 acres. This spring the dealers tell me there are orders for 

 seed already booked indicating a sowing of between three and four 

 thousand acres, and that in this depressing season. A gentleman 

 sowed 50 acres, a neighbor of mine. It was very thin, poor soil. 

 He had a poor crop last year, about two and a half tons to the acre. 

 He sold the crop for a thousand dollars, $12 a ton. It cost him 

 $1.20 to bale it, and he sold it to the alfalfa mill grinding com- 

 pany at Elgin, and he sold two carloads to the gentleman who owns 

 the famous Guernse}- cow that made 1013 pounds of butter last 

 year. He sold another car to a gentleman at Duluth. I could 

 have sold .100 carloads of alfala this year if I had it, at $12 a ton on 

 board cars. But I did not want to spare it, with the stock 1 have, 

 about 80 Guernseys. I am a good deal like the old Pennsylvania 

 Dutchman, "I don't know God Almighty, how He feels towards me 

 another year." 



A Member: Do 3-011 grow the seed? 



GOV. HOARD: I have been trying to grow the seed, but have been 

 unable to do so yet. We have had wet seasons. They tell me you 

 cannot grow it in a wet season. 



A Member: How do you plant it? 



GOV. HOARD: I sow it with a drill. You have these drills in this 

 state where the grass seed box is in front? 



A Member: Yes. 



GOV. HOARD: Yes, that is the same as I have. I sow about 

 25 pounds to the acre on very heavy strong soil. Mr. Wing recom- 

 mends 15 pounds. I prefer 10 pounds more for the sake of mak- 

 ing it grow finer. I broke up a year ago 28 acres of alfalfa sod 

 and planted it to corn. The neighbors say they never saw such a 

 crop on the place before. The mechanical effect of alfalfa roots 

 upon the land is wonderful. It required three horses weighing 

 about 1,500 pounds apiece with a jointer to break it, and you could 

 hear it, it sounded like they were tearing the strongest piece of 

 canvas you ever saw. It was like plowing through a hazel bush. 



The roots were in the soil so deep and so strong that it has a 

 mechanical effect upon the land like this. A year ago last spring 

 when I was breaking up and ploAving my land — my land is heavy 

 clay, it keeps me a little late sometimes, I got very anxious. I 

 went at my plowing, and feeling I was plowing when it was wrong, 

 and all my land plowed shiny, you know how that is, all except 

 the alfalfa field, and that plowed like an ash heap. I began to 

 study. That field was like a paper box bored full of holes ten to 

 fifteen feet deep. I tell you we have dug alfalfa roots from these 

 old fields twelve to fifteen feet down, went down to find out. You 

 can see what a tremendous mechanical effect such a plant has upon 

 the land. One old German says, "Mein Gott in Himmel. I grow not 

 that stuff on that lant, everything run all the way down through." 



