94 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



Life of a Field. What then is the profitable 

 duration of an alfalfa field? In California, in some 

 of the dry valleys with loose subsoil, it may ap- 

 parently endure for a century. The writer has 

 walked over an alfalfa field in Texas that was 40 

 years old ; in Kansas perhaps 10 years, in Nebraska 

 maybe the same, or nearly as long ; in Iowa probably 

 four to six years. In Ohio alfalfa will endure for 

 10 years on the best drained land, and maybe for 

 much longer time, yet the greatest profit is found in 

 keeping it only while it is at its maximum efficiency, 

 and that is about four years. Why expect or care to 

 have it last forever? Alfalfa is one of the easiest 

 established of clovers, nor is it costly to seed. It 

 powerfully enriches the soil. Why then care to 

 have it endure forever? It is wiser to use it only 

 while in its full vigor, then as disaster overtakes 

 it and one plant here, another there, dies out, leav- 

 ing the stand thin, to plow it and re-seed after tak- 

 ing off a crop or two of grain or roots, or whatever 

 is required. 



In Maryland there is in Harford county a type 

 of soil with such acid subsoil that alfalfa will not 

 last more than a year or two in it. Yet some dairy- 

 men have learned that it pays better to grow alfalfa 

 than any other crop, leaving it stand only one year, 

 then plowing and at once re-seeding. The practice 

 is to sow in August, letting the alfalfa grow uncut 

 that fall, then harvesting a good crop in late May, 

 another in late June, a third crop about the first of 

 August, at once plowing and thoroughly preparing 



