THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XII 651 



10. Alfalfa is being grown most successfully on the Missouri Loess 

 and Moraine soils. The greatest number of failures are reported from the 

 Iowa drift and southern Iowa Loess areas. 



11. Sixteen seedings made at Ames since 1904 have given an average 

 yield of 4.38 tons of field cured hay per acre. These yields indicate the 

 returns which may be expected from alfalfa on an average Iowa soil when 

 the best cultural methods are used. 



12. It is useless to attempt to grow alfalfa on land which is not 

 thoroughly well drained. 



13. While good stands and yields of alfalfa have been secured on 

 fertile soils without the aid of manure, yet these yields are in almost 

 every case largely increased by its use. On soils only medium in fertility, 

 manure is essential to the greatest success, and on soils below the aver- 

 age successful stands are practically never secured without its liberal use. 



14. No one can afford to court failure by not inoculating the soil in 

 seeding alfalfa. While many fairly successful fields have been secured 

 without inoculating the soil, yet trials in every section of the state indi- 

 cate that a more vigorous growth and greater yield is secured when the 

 field is inoculated. 



15. On most of our soils an application of lime has been shown to be 

 very beneficial and in some cases essential to the successful growing of 

 alfalfa. 



16. The surest method of securing a stand of alfalfa is to seed in the 

 middle of August on summer fallowed land. 



17. On many of our soils alfalfa may be seeded with success in the 

 spring, putting the alfalfa in with a small grain crop. This method has 

 the advantage of greatly reducing the cost of seeding. 



18. To keep the alfalfa free from blue grass, the field should be culti- 

 vated once or twice each year. For this work the spring-tooth harrow 

 is especially desirable. 



19. Alfalfa hay can be cured as easily as red clover hay. 



20. Seed of the common American alfalfa, produced on non-irrigated 

 fields, preferably in Dakota, Montana or Nebraska, is recommended in 

 preference to other varieties. 



21. The original seeding should be small until the best method of 

 handling the crop on the particular soil in question is known. 



FOREWORD. 



In presenting this bulletin, we wish to acknowledge indebtedness for 

 much practical information received from Iowa farmers who have grown 

 alfalfa, many of them for a long time. A great deal of very valuable 

 information on many other crop problems may be gathered from this same 

 source. Moreover, the sooner these scattered bits of information can be 

 collected, pieced together and presented in connection with other informa- 

 tion from other sources, the sooner we will be able to handle our farms 

 more successfully. 



Much is still to be learned regarding the best methods of handling al- 

 falfa and the best treatments for various Iowa soils, but with the large 



