268 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. 
United States since those early days. This feature of the work, 
as well as the discussions of field crops in which the feeding value 
or the chemical, botanical, entomological or bacteriological features 
are most prominent, will be discussed elsewhere in this volume by 
the members of the staff most interested. 
The review here will be of the problems and tests of general 
cultural methods, tests of varieties, introduction of new crops and 
similar topics, and the crops will be discussed in their alphabetical 
order. 
ALFALFA. 
This plant had been cultivated to a limited extent in New York 
for at least sixty years previous to the establishment of the Station, 
and some records indicate that it was known, under the name 
lucerne, as early as the middle of the Eighteenth Century. How- 
ever, except in a few scattered localities, it was not grown on large 
enough areas to be considered more than a curiosity. In its first 
year the Station took up the culture of the plant and has grown 
the crop continuously since that time. During the first season the 
plats of alfalfa and lucerne were regarded! as representing different 
plants, but the practical identity of the two was soon evident and 
the name alfalfa used and recommended for Medicago sativa as 
grown in the State. The first sowings were not considered 
especially promising, probably, as we may conclude from the ex- 
perience of the last decade, because the bacteria necessary for the 
best growth of the plant were not present in sufficient numbers to 
secure thorough inoculation. A blight, now known as the leaf 
blight, also affected the plants, and since it was not then known 
that cutting the plants was an effective check to this trouble, the 
plats became very yellow and dwarfed-looking through June and 
July. With the second growth of that year the plats began to im- 
prove and in a few seasons, with sowings made on other plats and 
fields, convinced the Station observers of the great value of this 
legume for forage. 
Efforts were made by the Station to encourage careful testing 
of the plant on a small scale in various localities throughout the 
State to ascertain its adaptability to different soils, conditions and 
seasons. The plats at the Station gradually increased in size and 
the forage was increasingly used in feeding the dairy herd and 
other animals, but no bulletin dealing with alfalfa was published 
* Rpt. 1:77 (1882). 
