242 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



on for the supply of Rrain to take the place occupied by shelled corn in latitudes 

 farther south. Corn itself will be grown for fodder and for silage. 



FOBAGE CROPS. 



The grasses. Timothy is undoubtedly the leading grass in the Upper Peninsula 

 as it is in the rest of the State, largely because it is hardy and because the 

 period in which it can be cut for hay is long. While orchard grass must be cut 

 as soon as it comes in blossom or the hay will be woody and unpalatable, timothy 

 may be cut at any time after the heads are fully formed and before the seed 

 hardens with the certainty that it will make fairly good hay. Again, timothy, 

 while not making the best hay, is fairly certain in its yield, a statement which 

 cannot be made of other grasses. Orchard grass has done well upon the station 

 plots and is to be commended to the attention of Upper Peninsula farmers. 

 Meadow fescue demands a moist climate. It is a leading grass in England. Con- 

 ditions at the Upper Peninsula station seem to favor it as a hay grass. Meadow fox- 

 tail is worthy of further trial as a pasture grass because of its earliness. Bromus 

 inermis which does so well in the west, seems to find in the Upper Peninsula a 

 place that suits it. Kentucky blue grass, the universal pasture grass, also com- 

 mends itself to the Upper Peninsula farmer. The trials of these grasses at the 

 experiment station warrant these statements. 



The millets have made tremendous growths whenever sown since the establish- 

 ment of the station. They will mature in a short season and although they are 

 easily killed by the frosts they grow so rapidly that a good harvest may be ex- 

 pected when they are sown in May, or even as late as the first of June. When 

 sown the fourth of .Tune the Hungarian millet was harvested the third of Sep- 

 tember, yielding nearly four tons to the acre. Sown again June 8, 1904, it was 

 harvested September 14, yielding something over three tons per acre The fact 

 that the plots at the station are exceedingly small must be kept in mind in con- 

 siderin.g these yields. 



Legumes. The leading legume, as far as the extent of tests at the station is 

 concerned, is alfalfa. This plant has been sown for several years at the station 

 and has lived throu.gh the winter undoubtedly because of the certainty and suffi- 

 ciency of the snow cover. In other parts of the Upper Peninsula alfalfa has 

 lived through the winter and the areas of the alfalfa fields are increasing. 

 Wherever it has been sown where a hardpan is near the surface or where sown 

 with a nurse crop failures are reported. Again, the small size of the plots 

 prevents the report of reliable data in the comparison of different varieties of 

 alfalfa or of crops growing from seed from deffnite sources. The German alfalfa 

 or the crop from imported seed seems to have done as well at the station as the 

 American grown seed. The Turkestan gives the smallest yield of any of the 

 alfalfas tried in the year 1904. 



In the spring of 1905 it was noted that the crowns of the alfalfa seem to have 

 been smothered out in the winter and the roots are sending up new shoots from 

 below the crown. This makes the stand apparently very thin and heavy crops 

 cannot be expected. 



A European legume called Sanfoin gives some promise after three or four 

 years trial 



June Clover. It has not required the work of the experiment station to show 

 that on all clay loams and clays of the Upper Peninsula June clover is very cer- 

 tain to yield a heavy crop. Alsike clover belongs to the same list. The climate 

 and soil are of the type which the clovers demand. The sole drawback seems 

 to be the wet harvests. 



Certain other legumes like the chick pea will require a good deal of observa- 

 tion before they are recommended. The lupines, both white and blue, make a 

 luxuriant growth and display a hardiness almost equal to clover. The cow peas 

 did not get far enough along to blossom. The soy beans were planted June 7 

 and blossomed August 7, setting a large number of pods with beans in various 

 stages of growth. None approached ripeness. In 1903 the Ito San and the 

 Ogemaw blossomed as early as August 22 and although no seed ripened, still the 

 pods were well filled. Several other varieties of soy beans grew to a height of 

 30 inches to 3G inches, but did not ripen seed 



The vetches did not ripen seed and hence there seems to be little danger of 

 the plant becoming a weed in the Upper Peninsula. In 1904 they were still in 



