New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 553 



near the surface. In fact, although nodules or excrescences 

 caused by the micro-organisms are common on the roots near 

 the surface, there are few of the small fibrous roots except at 

 the greater depths reached, where they are abundant. This indi- 

 cates a power of deep feeding. At the same time alfalfa re- 

 sponds readily to a top dressing of fertilizers, and abundant rain- 

 fall or surface irrigation is necessary to assure the largest crops. 

 Old plants, will, however, make a fair growth in times of drought 

 seriously affecting many crops. The normal root seems to be a 

 single long tap root running to the depth of three or more feet 

 before dividing into branches which run to greater depths of 

 even twelve feet or more, although they will not extend below 

 the permanent water table, nor more than a few inches into the 

 permanently saturated soil. 



Alfalfa is often able to adapt itself to soils where the roots 

 cannot extend deeply, and plants transplanted when young, off 

 which the tap roots have been cut at the depth of less than a 

 foot, have endured well. 



Under favorable conditions the yield of alfalfa increases up 

 to three or four years, and good crops follow for ten years or 

 more. Often, however, such grasses as c^uack and June grass, 

 and plantains, dandelion and similar weeds spread over the field 

 to the increasing injury of the crop, although many weeds are 

 subdued by the frequent cuttings. Ordinarily it will pay to plow 

 up the field after about six or eight years. Sometimes the al- 

 falfa appears able to hold its own indefinitely. A small plat 

 seeded to alfalfa about twelve years ago still gives two or three 

 good cuttings each season, although it has been densly over- 

 grown with grass for several years, and probably for the whole 

 time. There was never more than a very scattering stand, but 

 there appears no decrease in the number of plants. 



Average Yield, 

 The average of five crops of four cuttings each obtained at 

 this Station during the three past years was over seventeen tons 

 of green fodder per acre. This was from fields one to three 

 years old. 



