620 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE • Off, Doc. 



falfa successfully. What are these few things absolutely necessary? 



First, the land must be absolutely dry. Dig holes in it, and in- 

 spect them, and see if they fill up in wet weather. If they do drain 

 it with tiles. Just lay your tiles as close together as you can, and 

 then let them go. Then take your manure spreader and give that 

 field a thorough coat of manure and turn it ovev thoroughly. 



Let me tell you another thing: It is a surprising thing, I know, 

 but it holds out. If, in plowing, you notice the blackbirds follow 

 that furrow, alfalfa will grow there. The blackbirds follow the 

 earth-worms, and where the ground is too poor to produce earth- 

 worms it is too poor and too hard for alfalfa. 



Your land drained, you must make it rich. Now alfalfa is the 

 greatest soil enricher that I know of, but it will not enrich poor soil. 

 That is, according to scripture, which takes from him that hath not, 

 and gives to him that hath. 



Down in Kentucky I planted more than a thousand little plots 

 in the course of my work there. Some time ago I passed through 

 that State, and as I sat in the train and looked out of the window, 

 as the train wound around the curves of the mountains, perched up 

 on the mountain side I saw a little cabin, and a young woman in a 

 sunbonnet in the field near it. And I said to myself, "There is lone- 

 liness and privation." There is an old bone-grilled tobacco field or 

 two, with some sassafras brush — just enough to keep life in that 

 young man who has started up housekeeping with that young woman 

 in the sunbonnet, and that old mule — and then the train went round 

 the curve, and right there on the top of the ledge lay a little field of 

 alfalfa, and then my heart was glad, for I saw better days ahead for 

 that young couple. That alfalfa will enrich that old mountain soil, 

 and he will have crops to take to town, and they will have comfort. 



Now, I don't know anything that will enrich a soil quicker than 

 alfalfa will, but you must give it rich land to start on. What do 

 I mean by rich land? I would make it as rich, almost, as I would 

 for a corn crop. Take off the corn crop, if you want, and then start 

 right in on alfalfa. Another thing is, it must be grown on sweet 

 land. More of the failures to grow alfalfa in Pennsylvania have 

 been due to lack of lime in the land than to anything else. About a 

 year ago I was looking at some land down near Philadelphia. The 

 land was rich, it was dry, but the alfalfa would not grow. It was 

 lacking in lime; the soil was acid. You can put the lime there and 

 make it sweet. The Experiment Station has not found it so, but 

 they may be wrong, for I believe in the lime. 



Now, these things are all you need. The land must be dry; the 

 land must be rich, and the land must be sweet. The rest of it is just 

 faith. 



Then, how are you going to sow it? Let me tell you how we 

 sow it. We sow it always in the spring, and we try to cultivate the 

 crop of the jjrevious year. In our corn crop we run a one-horse cul- 

 tivator through it to rid it of the weeds, and it is important to get 

 rid of the weeds early, before they spread and take a firm hold. 

 When we have turned the soil, we work the lime in, and we get the 

 seed up by the middle of April, and we sow it always with a nurse 

 crop of beardless spring barley. The seed is a little hard to get, but 

 it is the best barley to sow, and it is wise to sow your alfalfa with 



