OBSERVATIONS FROM FARMERS. 167 
of alfalfa in full bloom attracted my attention. The German 
farmer, at whose place we stopped, was pleased when I 
spoke of the alfalfa and was greatly surprised to learn that 
we had none in our neighborhood. He told of its great feed- 
ing value forall stock and made, as the strongest point, that 
it was everlasting, while the red clover with him, often killed 
out the first year. This good report of this great forage 
crop did not appeal to my father as strongly as it would 
have later as we were more interested in grain than stock. 
However, the next spring, we purchased at Minneapolis, a 
few pounds of alfalfa seed with which we seeded a few rods 
of land in one end of a field that we seeded down to red clo- 
ver. We were greatlysurprised to find our everlasting clover 
all killed the next spring, while the red clover was not in- 
jured. We did not do anything more with alfalfa for some 
time. 
‘‘Ten years later, in 1890, I taughtschool about 15 miles 
from here and found thefarmers all growing alfalfa. I noted 
its great feeding value and also that it was everlasting, as the 
farmers told me how long different fields had been seeded and 
no one had had it winter killed. Children in school often 
spoke of ‘‘everlasting clover.’’ I reported at home the many 
advantages of alfalfa over red clover and the next spring we 
purchased again at Minneapolis 4% bushel alfalfa seed. We 
seeded about twoacres alfalfain barley and got a finestand. 
The Germans often cut or pastured the first year after cut- 
ting the grain but we did not. Our alfalfawas about a foot 
high and went into winter thus. The next summer we cut 
three crops of hay and there was quite a fourth crop which 
we didn’t cut or pasture. You can guess our surprise at 
finding the “everlasting (?) clover” all dead the next spring, 
also our surprise to find that the Germans had not lost arod 
by winter killing. About this time there appeared an article 
in one of the Minneapolis papers stating that alfalta was 
not a success in Minnesota except that it did well in Carver 
county. Our experience and observation and this article led 
me to form the opinion that common alfalfa was not hardy 
and that these Germans had a variety that was perfectly 
hardy. Since then, I have seen this proven a hundred times, 
have seen fields of common alfalfa and our hardy variety 
