524 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



12 loads of well rotted manure were evenly spread over each acre. Better 

 results by far would have been secured from the use of 150 pounds of 

 ground limestone per acre in addition, but not being readily available and 

 the time for seeding close at hand it was not used until the following 

 year. 



It was a very dry summer and experienced farmers laughed at the idea 

 of trying to plow in that section of the country in July. Nevertheless 

 the dust mulch accomplished the purpose for which it was provided. 

 Moisture was brought up from below by capillary attraction so that by 

 the middle of July the ground plowed as readily as it would in the 

 spring. 



Each day that portion of the field which had been plowed was rolled 

 to break up the clods and immediately harrowed to re-establish capillary 

 attraction and eliminate as much as possible the evaporation of moisture 

 from the soil. When the whole lO-acre field had been plowed, discing and 

 harrowing began in earnest. Day after day during the hot month of 

 July one man and four horses were busy working over the ground firm- 

 ing the seed bed, pulverizing the dirt and providing a surface that 

 would insure with a certainty sufficient soil moisture to germinate seeds, 

 regardless of the drouth which so invariably occurs in most sections 

 of the corn belt during the summer. 



Good farmers with long experience began to doubt the sanity of this 

 farm management and when finally the time came for driving a team 

 and wagon five miles to secure a load of dirt from along the roadside 

 where sweet clover was growing luxuriantly it was generally conceded 

 that no such fool farming had ever before taken place in that county. 



The dirt was distributed by the use of a fertilizer distributor over the 

 soil and on the 10th day of August 200 pounds of Turkestan alfalfa seed 

 were drilled into the soil from a half to three-quarters of an inch deep. 

 So certain were the older farmers that alfalfa would not grow and so 

 ridiculous had my operations appeared to the neighbors that on that 

 hot day when the only indication of success was an inch of dust over the 

 surface of the field with a moist seed bed below and the fact that I had 

 done everything possible to merit success, I began to doubt the practica- 

 bility of the process myself. Within two weeks the alfalfa made its ap- 

 pearance, the fall rains came and by November there was an excellent 

 stand six inches tall. 



Every year since that field has been cut from three to four times, yield- 

 ing from 75 to 100 tons of alfalfa hay worth in the neighborhood of $20 

 per ton. The neighbors who ridiculed began to believe it was worth 

 while and each one has since tried to raise alfalfa. Last year the owner 

 of Auten Farm advised me that blue grass had begun to take the field and 

 that for the past three years he had tried without success to establish 

 new fields and his neighbors have done likewise. He wished the secret 

 for growing alfalfa successfully. 



In reply to the inquiry as to whether or not the many attempts had 

 been accompanied with inoculating the ground with sweet clover soil he 

 advised that it was generally conceded that in that section soil inocula- 



