A Permanent Stand of Alfalfa 



Winter-killing and its Remedies 



X'M PRETTY well soured on this alfalfa business. That fine 

 ten-acre field west of the barn which I seeded two years ago 

 is as dead as a doornail this spring. My neighbor's field across 

 the road is in the same boat. Why, I got fifty loads off that patch 

 last summer and I booked it for another fifty this year. 



"You wouldn't think a crop with such powerful roots would winter- 

 kill. But the blamed stuff certainly does. You can go into my 

 field and pull up dead alfalfa plants by the thousands. It is easy 

 enough for some of these fellows to tell us how to grow alfalfa, but 

 how are we going to keep it after we once get it growing? that's 

 what I would like to know." 



This is not a one-man outburst. It represents the sentiments 

 prevalent among 5000 or more alfalfa growers in Northern Illinois, 

 Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin last spring (1916). Never in years had 

 there been such wholesale winterkilling of good stands of alfalfa and 

 clover and even of fall wheat and rye. 



Winterkilling Disappoints 



Yes, alfalfa, like clover, winterkills; but it is not necessarily the 

 cold winters with extremely low temperatures that do the damage. 

 It's the open winters, with little or no snow for protection against 

 heaving and injury from alternate freezing and thawing, that cause 

 havoc in our best fields of clover and alfalfa. 



Flat lands are affected worst of all. Here the water from melting 

 snow or spring rains accumulates and with cold weather smothering 

 ice sheets put an end to the alfalfa beneath. What are we going to 

 do about it? Shall we look at it as beyond prevention, as we would 

 a hailstorm or a drought in the summer, or can winterkilling of al- 

 falfa be controlled? We shall see. (See Fig. 40.) 



First of all, winterkilling is only a problem in those more Northern 

 States where the winters are quite severe. Let me say at the out- 

 set that I have no patience with the chronic kicker in those sections 

 who complains about the loss of his alfalfa when he has cut or pas- 

 tured it late in the fall or at any time after the first part of September. 



Resist that Temptation 



"Oh, that doesn't hurt it. I cut mine in October two years ago 

 and it came through the winter in fine shape. Why, my neighbor 

 fall-pastured his right down to the ground and you never saw a better 

 field the next year." I have heard this argument time and again. 



"But how about it this spring?" I inquire. 



"Oh, it's just like mine. It's dead!" 



Don't Kill the Goose 



We forget that some winters may be so favorable that the alfalfa 

 is not seriously injured in spite of late cutting or late pasturing. 



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