58 



Twenty-nine packages of the seed of sulla were distributed in 1898 

 and 10 reports have been received, only a few of which are satisfactory. 

 Mr. O. S. Herrint^ton, Dollie, Jones County, Miss., reports: 



A sandy, pine rid^e in first-class condition was prepared as for cotton. The seed 

 was sown broadcast. ( )n account of dry weather I failed to get a stand until Decem- 

 ber 1. There is no doubt but that sulla will do well here. I scattered some .seed (jn 

 unprepared land, and it came up with the first rains, and now looks as thrifty as that 

 on the prepared land. I shall be glad to report again later on. 



TTJRKESTAN ALFALFA (Medicag-o sativa var. turkestanica) . 



(Plate X, fig. 1.) 



This variety of alfalfa was received for the Department, through 

 Prof. N. E. Hansen, from eight localities in Russian Turkestan, in 

 June, 1898. It is found growing from the cotton-growing sections 

 of Bokhara and other parts of Russian Turkestan, into western China 

 and to its northern limits near Kopal, Siberia. 



Prince Massalski, of the Department of Agriculture at St. Peters- 

 burg, writes (The Industries of Russia, Vol. Ill, p. 459): 



Lucern-clover {Medicago sativa var. turkestanica) is the chief forage in use through- 

 out Central Asia, and to the settled population of Turkestan is (jf the highest impor- 

 tance, since during the summer it forms the chief, and in winter, prepared in the 

 shape of hay, the only fodder for cattle. It is of all the greater importance because 

 within the region populated by settled inhabitants there are no meadows. Soft herbs 

 and other grasses that grow up in the early spring in certain parts of the steppes are 

 quickly dried up by the hot rays of the sun, and give place to coarse, prickly stubble, 

 or in any case to less nutritive grasses that are in general unfitted for sheep, camels, 

 or steppe cattle, and still less fitted for horses or the cattle of those who are settled 

 in the oases, and are thus closely confined to the forelands or rivers, and in most 

 cases are far removed from the steppes. 



Prince Massalski describes the native methods of cultivation and 

 irrigation, and continues: 



The native lucern would seem to be a cattle fodder that can not be replaced in 

 countries so dry and so hot as Turkestan and the Transcaspian Province. Parallel 

 experiments that have been made in the Merv oases, in the Transcaspian Province, in 

 sowing native and French lucern, particularly where there is a lack of water, show 

 that it is vastly superior to the French in the crops it yields, and that it is able to 

 grow satisfactorily with a minimum supply of water, a supply so small that European 

 lucern would perish from drought. This peculiarity of the native lucern is to be 

 explained by its peculiar structure. It possesses a very large root system, and its 

 leaves are covered with thick down; this, in conjunction with a deep-cut channel on 

 the leaf, enables the plant on the one hand to imbibe the moisture from the deeper 

 layers of the soil, and on the other hand to exhale it in very small cjuantity. 



Alfalfa is extensively grown throughout the entire United States 

 with the exception of New England. It is a deep feeder. The taproot 

 descends to a great depth wherever the soil is loose and permeable, 



