PART XI 



PAPERS ON LIVE STOCK, AGRICULTURAL 

 AND MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS 



FROM 



BULLETINS, AGRICULTURAL PRESS 



AND 



Papers Read Before County Farmer's Institutes 



ALFALFA. 

 THE SEED BED AND SEEDING. 



BY H. D. HUGHES 



Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, Ames. 



Alfalfa can toe grown successfully on nearly all Iowa soils, providing 

 that proper methods are followed. The fact that a few men have not suc- 

 ceeded with the crop in their first attempt should not discourage any, as 

 the per cent of failures is probably not much greater than the per cent of 

 failures in securing a stand of crops with which we are thoroughly familiar, 

 such as red clover, timothy, etc. Inquiries recently made by the Iowa State 

 college indicate that alfalfa is producing large yields of hay of the finest 

 quality on almost every soil in the state. 



Alfalfa has been successfully grown on the college farm and on the experi- 

 ment station fields for a number of years. Two fields which are still in 

 alfalfa this season may be mentioned as indicative of what may reasonably 

 be expected. 



On the college dairy farm a field of 7 1 /, acres was seeded in August, 

 1908. In 1909 and again in 1910 1 three cuttings were made with a total 

 yield of 5% tons per acre each year. In 1910 the field also gave consider- 

 able pasturage. This season the first crop was cut on June 12th with an 

 average yield of 2% tons per acre for the whole piece. 



A plot on the far crops experimental fields, seeded August 18, 1908, gave 

 three cuttings with 5.25 tons per acre in 1909, three cuttings with 5.15 

 tons per acre in 1910, and the first cutting this year gave 2.25 tons per 

 acre, of field cured hay. 



