784 



IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ALFALFA IN THE EASTERN STATES. 



Although alfalfa has been grown for a long time on a small scale in 

 many localities in the Eastern States, it is only within a few years that 



serious attempts hare 

 been made to extend its 

 culture and place it 

 among the important for- 

 age crops of this region. 

 Alfalfa is now being 

 grown successfully on a 

 field scale in the alluvial 

 back bottom lands of the 

 Red River in Louisiana, 

 the Mississippi River 

 from southern Missouri 

 to New Orleans, the 

 Yazoo delta in Missis- 

 sippi, the black prairie 

 belt of Mississippi and 

 Alabama the bluegrasaJ 

 region extending from 

 Tennessee to New York 

 and Iowa, and various 

 isolated but favorable 

 localities elsewhere. The 

 attempts to grow alfalfa 

 in New England have 

 been successful in but 

 comparatively few cases. 

 The fact, however, that 

 in some cases these 

 attempts have been fol- 

 lowed by success shows 

 that the alfalfa area in 

 this region for its growth 

 are better known. Every 

 year sees an extension 

 northward of the alfalfa area in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York. 

 A particularly hardy strain has been grown in Carver County, 

 Minn., for a number of years. The Minnesota Experiment Station 

 has found that the seed from this strain gives satisfactory results, 

 and confirms the statement that alfalfa can be acclimatized in regions 

 much farther north than where it is now commonly grown. Alfalfa is a 

 standard forage crop in the limestone districts of southern Ontario, and is 

 grown here and there as far north as Ottawa and southern Quebec. In 

 Nova Scotia it can be grown, but the soil conditions are unfavorable, 

 and it does not complete with red clover. 



Fig. a -Alfalfa, 3 year; old. 



