388 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



other kind of hay. Another teamster reduced his ground corn and oat^ 

 25 per cent while feeding alfalfa hay. and said his team never gained 

 so much or did so well as on the alfalfa hay. A third teamster said it 

 was just what his team needed; that he had trouble for years with hit 

 horses as their manure was so dry and came from them like bullets, and 

 that the alfalfa had loosened them up in good shape. The fourth team- 

 ster drove one horse upon a grocery delivery wagon, a heavy load be- 

 cause of so much rain and mud. After he had fed the alfalfa two weeks 

 his horse gained in flesh, coat andi every other way, notwithstanding he 

 had to work six days in the week. I have used alfalfa in the fall for 

 pasture for yearlings, both horses and calves, and have never found 

 anything to make them grow and fill out like alfalfa. 



Cut when the weather is dry and the field about ten' to twenty per 

 cent in bloom. Let it cure well in cocks or windrows. If put in barn 

 too green it will get dusty, and it is claimed that there is danger of 

 spontaneous combustion if the first crop is put in too green. 



Alfalfa winters well in our climate, but in extreme cold winters 

 without snow, such as we experienced about three years ago, with three 

 feet of frost, it will winter kill the same as other members of the clover 

 family. In the far northwest ranchers claim that water frozen on al- 

 falfa will make a poison which is dangerous, but I have known of one 

 field in Illinois that both horses and cattle have run over and fed on 

 for several winters with no bad results. I believe alfalfa is just as val- 

 uable for us for pasture as for hay, and think that in a dry year lilie 

 1901 one acre of alfalfa will produce more pasture for stock than five 

 acres of the best pasture land that we have. I expect to increase the 

 acreage each year, and to say I am well pleased with my experiment is 

 placing it mildly. 



Livingston' County, Illinois. 



ALFALFA ON SANDY SOIL. 



A Plain Farmer in Breeders' Gazette. 



T. R. D. asks in your issue of February 4: 



"Will alfalfa do well on third-bottom sandy land in Ohio? Should 

 peas and beans be grown for two or three years before trying alfalfa?" 



On ten acres of sandy clay land I drilled Whippoorwill cowpeas and 

 soy beans in rows tw"© inches apart, then sowed ten pounds of alfalfa 

 per acre and harrowed the field with a section drag. For a number ol 

 years I had fed shocked corn to stock on' this field and six years ago 

 had a good stand of blue-grass, but drouth nearly killed it out. The 

 peas, beans and alfalfa seeded May 1st came up promptly and made a 

 growth two feet high. I let them stand until Lhe soy bean pods began 

 to yellow and some of the alfalfa had seeded. About August 15th I 

 harvested twenty loads of mixed hay, of which the cowpea hay proved 

 the most palatable to the stock and the soy beans next; the alfalfa 



