AS A PASTURE PLANT. 339 



Turn on Full. The animals, whether sheep, cattle 

 or swine, should not be hungry when turned on. 

 They should be allowed to fill themselves completely 

 with bluegrass, should have a ration of their usual 

 grain, if they are eating grain; then at about ten 

 o'clock, when they do not care to graze longer, they 

 should be introduced to the alfalfa pasture. It is 

 well to stay with them until they have eaten what 

 they will of the new forage and laid down to digest 

 it; there will not be much tendency to bloat, but 

 should there be it is well to be on hand. Being 

 turned on at this time of day and stage of repletion, 

 they will not consume very much alfalfa at first, and 

 this is what you desire. Once filled up, the subse- 

 quent treatment is charmingly simple: they must 

 never again be taken away from the alfalfa, night 

 or day, rain or shine ! The philosophy is that treated 

 thus they never become hungry and thus take in but 

 a little alfalfa forage at a time. 



The usual practice of turning in for fifteen min- 

 utes the first day, half an hour the second day, an 

 hour the third day and so on, is the worst possible 

 to conceive, as it brings the cattle every time hungry 

 to the field, and in fifteen minutes they can pack 

 an immense amount of alfalfa into their stomachs. 

 We have permitted sheep to leave the alfalfa fields 

 during the heat of the day and come to the barn 

 for shade and water. About ten in the morning, 

 earlier during very hot weather, they would do this, 

 and then at three or four in the afternoon they would 



