l66 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



and forgot all about it, and when I came back to look at it the stuff had 

 grown almost through that barrel. I called my father to look at it and 

 he was very much surprised, but he said, "My boy, do you suppose I 

 want to grow a crop that won't grow unless I put a barrel over it?" 

 Well, that was a very small beginning. I used to lay awake nights 

 thinking of the old farm where I had been raised. I loved the old 

 place passionately. I thought if ever I got back there I would make 

 alfalfa meadows grow there; for if I could make one acre grow like 

 that one plant that I saw last year, I could make a million acres grow 

 if conditions are right. So when I came home to stay I brought some 

 alfalfa seed home with me and tried to get father to let me sow it. 

 Finally he said, "You can have that old potato patch if you want it," 

 and so I sowed, in 1890, my first alfalfa in Ohio. I sowed it in the 

 old potato patch. It was good land — clay soil, well manured, and it 

 grew finely. Next I sowed three acres more, but the alfalfa did not 

 do any good — only got one acre out of three to grow ; one acre was 

 wet land and one was poor. I saw that I would have to drain the land, 

 so I started in. We laid, between then and now, fourteen miles of tile 

 underdrainiiig and we hauled a lot of manure. Little by little we got our 

 land into alfalfa — it could not be done all at once. We own farming land 

 now worth to us $150 an acre; it makes big interest on that all the time. 

 It is wonderful what you can do if you just get in partnership with 

 the Almighty. We took up this work of raising sheep in order to get 

 manure to make the fields rich, and little by little we learned to grow 

 alfalfa to feed the sheep. 



I will tell you how we bring up land to grow alfalfa. We bought 

 sixty acres a few years ago. The physical condition of the soil was 

 all wrong; there was little fertility in it. First we put some tile-un- 

 (Irains in it — that was adding so much more money to our investment. 

 Then we took our manure spreader and spread manure on the land 

 and also put on some commercial fertilizers, and we got a fair crop 

 of corn. Then we planted it to oats with red clover and put some al- 

 falfa seed in with the clover. We got a pretty fair stand of clover. 

 Then we planted it to corn again and got a good crop. Then we sowed 

 it to clover and alfalfa again and got a nuich better stand. It will go 

 to corn again this year, and the men were spreading manure all over 

 that field when I left home. Next it all goes to alfalfa. Oh, manure 

 is a great thing. I love to see great loads of it go .by. It helps the 

 soil to get pervious. .Mfalfa will surely grow on manured land. 



Now, what are the advantages of alfalfa any way? In the first 

 place, alfalfa is a perrenial plant, living from year to year. In our 

 country alfalfa meadows endure from six to ten years. Then, alfalfa 



