SIXTH A^*NUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IT. 291 



success with it. At the same time. I do not beheve that it is 

 as easy to get alfalfa established here, but if we come to study 

 it more and if more men will put their knowledge to work we 

 will increase the area of alfalfa. The best alfalfa we have ever 

 grown on the college farm is grown on clay soil. I think you 

 can grow alfalfa as well on clay as other soil. While on this 

 subject I would like to say that for the past two seasons we have 

 been sowing alfalfa in August, sowing a crop of small grain 

 with it. and while it may not hold good invariably, we have had 

 best results thus far in sowing in August. We aim to get it 

 in in good condition the middle or latter part of August and 

 with a fair "amount of rain and good conditions it will make a 

 growth of from six inches to a foot before fall. The advantage 

 is that you do not lose the whole season. Alfalfa which we put 

 in last year has given excellent results and we had a strong, 

 vigorous crop this season and expect to put in more. A hard 

 winter will kill out alfalfa and we will lose a crop occasionally 

 but it is worth all the effort and all the cost that is necessary- 

 to get a crop of alfalfa established and especially about the build- 

 ings where you can use it as pasture for hogs. I consider 

 alfalfa very much better than blue-grass. One acre of alfalfa 

 amounts to fully three acres of blue-grass as pasture for hogs. 

 At this time of the year there would not be so much difference 

 but alfalfa keeps growing and does not die down. We have 

 tried sowing alfalfa when we lay the com by but I do not know 

 whether it will prove a success. It has not with us. and I am 

 inclined to thing that it will not. ^^'e always get the best results 

 without a nurse crop. You want to get the soil in the best 

 possible condition, make a fine seed bed and then sow liberally. 

 A\'e sow as a rule twenty-five pounds to the acre. I think alfalfa 

 can be grown on the soil of practically all parts of Iowa, on 

 timber or prairie soil. We have grown as good alfalfa on tim- 

 ber clay soil and high bluffs as ever any where." 



Mr. Munson gave his plan for pasturing hogs which seems 

 to be a ver}- good one. He said, "On the 28th of March I 

 sowed oats and rape on one of my six small hog pastures. 

 In three or four weeks I sowed another and so on. sowing a 



