250 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



But how are you going to get your alfalfa fields inoculated? The 

 easiest way seems to be to secure a few bushels of soil from an alfalfa 

 field already charged with the right bacteria and sow it over the land at 

 the rate of a bushel or two to the acre. The bacteria rapidly spread if 

 soil conditions are right, and that means dryness, air penetration, lime 

 enough to correct acidity, phosphoric acid enough to supply the mineral 

 needs of the plants. And what are these bacteria? I do not know. They 

 are too small for my eyesight. Professor Hopkins says of them: "A 

 single alfalfa plant may contain hundreds of tubercles upon its roots; a 

 single tubercle may contain a thousand million individual bateria.'' 



I feel now that I have been most remiss in not pushing this idea of 

 soil inoculation more than I have, for it is doubtless the secret of many 

 failures. As to what alfalfa is doing now in Illinois Professor Hopkins 

 gives numerous instances. Among them is the experience of W. R. Good- 

 win, Jr. (associate editor of The Gazette). His alfalfa is near Naperville 

 on the Du Page river. Two acres on bottom land were seeded in April, 

 1900. A good stand resulted and a satisfactory growth the first season. 

 During ldOl four large crops were cut, a total of twenty-one tons of field 

 cured hay by actual weight, making the total yield for the season of ten 

 and one-half tons per acre of excellent forage. Other instances are given 

 and alfalfa culture in Illinois is doubtless now on a firm footing on the 

 bottom round of the ladder. What shall hinder it from assuming great 

 proportions as the value of alfalfa hay to be fed with corn becomes better 

 and better known? 



ALFALFA IN IOWA. 



T. C. Gple, Thurm'an, Iowa. 



Alfalfa growing in Iowa is no longer an experiment. It is now well 

 known that it succeeds in the alluvial valleys of the state and likewise 

 can be successfully grown on rolling uplands that have usually been con- 

 sidered too dry to be safe for general farm crops. 



It is strange, yet true, that alfalfa has been grown for more than a 

 century, and yet it is a plant that is not fully understood, although its 

 great value has been partly realized by many interested farmers. 



It is a well known fact today that the man that possesses an alfalfa 

 field has a veritable gold mine. He has deposited some seed in the fer- 

 tile Iowa soil, and it but remains for him to handle it intelligently to 

 obtain from it much wealth. 



It is a surprise to note what a variety of soils alfalfa can be grown 

 on with varying degrees of success — sandy, sandy loam, black rich, yellow 

 clay, gumbo, but never on sloughs or swamps. There is much to be 

 learned about this wonderful plant as to the most successful methods of 

 planting, curing and stacking, and also feeding. 



We have yet to meet that man that knows all about it. We are at 

 least sure of one thing, that it is one of the greatest forage crops in Iowa 



