No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 767 



I thought it would, that it might injure it, but it serves to oxy- 

 genate the soil, and grinds and breaks it up and has a mechanical 

 effect like a sub-soiling plow on the land. 



A Member: Do the roots go down through hard pan? 



GOV. HOARD: If you have hard pan very near the surface — 

 the larger part of your land is not hard pan that will interfere 

 with it. 



A Member: Hard yellow clay? 



GOV. HOARD: It grows right straight through it. Goes right 

 down through a yellow clay. I have that on portions of my farm. 

 You dig down five and six feet and you will strike this hard and 

 yellow clay, sticky yellow. It was a white oak soil. 



Now, I have given some ideas of its feeding value, some ideas 

 about its growing. Let me say this: Prepare your soil, make as 

 good a seed bed as possible. I threw away $60 worth of seed of 

 a rye field, harrowed the rye field three times, loaded the harrow, 

 tore it all to pieces, and sowed the alfalfa on, thinking it would 

 grow as well as clover. I never got a thousand spears of alfalfa, but 

 got the biggest crop of rye I ever did get. But sow it with about 

 a bushel of barley. Last year I sowed a bushel but being a wet 

 season part of it lodged, but I sow every three weeks a bushel of 

 barley, and I could get a fair crop of barley. I got 40 bushels seed 

 off the barley, 40 bushels for one. But it was an unusual season. 



A Member: How about 60 day oats? 



GOV. HOARD: I do not know. 



A Member: How will it do on sandy soil? 



GOV. HOARD: If you can get it started all right — if you will give 

 a coat of manure, a heavy coat of manure. Suppose you give it a 

 good heavy coat of manure in the fall, and then in the spring, and the 

 next spring you go on with a disc and give it a good heavy discing, 

 harrowing, until you fine it down, then if you could give it about 30 

 bushels wood ashes, it is very greedy for that, if you can't get wood 

 ashes you might get muriate or sulphate of potash, and disc your 

 land that way and start it. If you can't get it going through the 

 first summer it will be all right from that time on. 



A Member: What about growing on limestone land? 



GOV. HOARD: It prefers limestone land. 



A Member: Clover burns out; it would not stay in. Does alfalfa 

 do the same thing? 



GOV. HOARD: Clover wants limestone land. 



A Member: Can't get it to stay more than three years. 



GOV. HOARD: The reason is that clover is a biennial and when 

 once it forms its seed it dies of its own volition. 



