640 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



markets, its vast significance upon the feed problems, dairy interests and 

 cattle-feeding interests can hardly at this early day be approximately 

 calculated. Its general introduction as a forage plant and as hay is 

 likely to revolutionize things. Already it is finding its way into the 

 great eastern markets, baled as hay, ground as meal in sacks or pressed 

 in cakes with cheap molasses. Unlike clover alfalfa hay produces no 

 dust and as a feed alone good alfalfa hay can not be excelled by any 

 other combination of feeds as far as wholesomeness and nutrition are con- 

 cerned. Its ultimate cheapness will eventually drive all spurious stock 

 foods and adulterated mill-feeds, with which farmers and dairymen have 

 been bamboozled, lo! these many years, out of the market. Stock food 

 concoctions composed of pulverized corncobs, buckwheat hulls, salt, char- 

 coal and mill-sweepings with a little fenugreek and tumeric to give it 

 a medicinal odor have lured from the unsuspecting farmers thousands 

 of dollars. These combinations, always high in price and generally worth- 

 less, were difficult for him to see through, but a powerful combination is 

 rising today which will be the stockfood's death-knell and relegated to a 

 timely grave. It is called pure food law and alfalfa feed. 



SOILS FOB ALFALFA. 



It was long supposed that the natural region of alfalfa was confined to 

 climatic belts. But it has since developed that it is more a question of 

 soil than of climate, and fortunately for the eastern farmer it has been 

 ascertained how to doctor up a soil if it proves deficient in certain ele- 

 ments. In the alkaline porous soils of the west, that abound in the 

 mineral elements, that have under the dry climate not been bleached out 

 as they have here, and that are pervious to water and air alike, there 

 alfalfa thrives luxuriantly with very little attention. 



But on the black and clay soils of the more eastern states it is only 

 in favored localities where it will thrive without artificial aid. Joseph 

 Wing, a recognized authority on raising alfalfa under similar conditions 

 as ours, and who after many unsuccessful attempts on his farm near Me- 

 chanicsburg, Ohio, has solved the problem and now annually raises 350 

 tons of alfalfa hay, attributed the failure of alfalfa in most cases to a 

 lack of time for neutralizing the acidity common to many of our soils. 

 It is this acidity that interferes with the growth of alfalfa and the fact 

 that our soils are underlaid more or less deep with a strata of lime- 

 stone does not necessarily prove that it is suflBciently present on the sur- 

 face to counteract this acidity. Wherever limestone is found on the sur- 

 face and" the land is sufficiently rich alfalfa culture is a success. The be- 

 ginner should make sure of this part of the subject and apply unburned 

 limestone dust to a part of his field at the rate of 3,000 pounds per acre 

 and note the difference. 



IXOCULATIOX. 



Another process that may be necessary to establish a field of alfalfa 

 is to inoculate the soil with the nitrifying germ, a bacteria at the root 

 of the plant which absorbs the nitrogen from the air, making it available 

 for plant-food. For the same reason that we add buttermilk from the 

 last churning as a starter to the cream to facilitate its ripening. The 



