186 Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



north coast of Africa, Spain, southern France, South America, and even 

 dry-land alfalfa from Utah, and several lots from Turkestan, winter- 

 killed from 90 to 100 per cent. A number of alfalfas from Mexico, France, 

 Germany and Turkestan, and from Utah, Montana, Colorado and Kansas 

 winterkilled from 80 to 90 per cent. Without giving further details, it 

 may be said, briefly, that the only alfalfa strain out of the sixty-eight in 

 which practically no winterkilling whatever occurred was Grimm. Fur- 

 thermore, it is interesting to note that of the twelve strains from Turke- 

 stan one winterkilled as little as 9 per cent, while another winterkilled 

 100 per cent, the rest being distributed all the way between these two 

 extremes. 



This example shows graphically the mistake of assuming that all alfalfa 

 from a given country is necessarily alike, especially when that country is 

 very large and has a considerable range of differences in climate. As 

 Brand and Waldron say, "When one considers that Turkestan has an 

 area almost as great as that part of the United States lying west of the 

 Mississippi, and a climate that ranges from as cold as Montana to as hot 

 as Arizona, this range in hardiness of commercial samples of seed is not 

 surprising." (Bull. 185, Bureau of Plant Industry.) 



On the basis of the results obtained by such a winter's test the North 

 Dakota Experiment Station was able to lay an intelligent foundation for 

 the breeding of hardy alfalfas. 



It is plain that but for the accidental importation of Grimm alfalfa, 

 and of one or two of the strains from Turkestan, alfalfa growing in 

 Minnesota and the Dakotas would be doomed to failure, since none of the 

 other alfalfas from East Asia, Africa, South America or the United 

 States has proved sufficiently hardy for that rigorous climate. Several 

 trips have been made to Russia, Siberia and Turkestan by Prof. N. E. 

 Hansen, of the South Dakota State College of Agriculture, as explorer 

 for the United States government. As a result we now have numerous 

 alfalfas which, while not all of them are completely hardy in the extreme 

 northwest, have shown that they contain material out of which hardier 

 alfalfas may be produced by selection, after acclimatization tests. 



As a matter of fact, work in alfalfa breeding has probably gone far 

 enough for definite statements to be made regarding some of the real 

 underlying reasons for both winter-hardiness and drouth-resistance. 

 From the experiments in Minnesota and the Dakotas, as we have seen, a 

 practical demonstration has been furnished of the fact that certain 

 strains of alfalfa will survive the intensely cold winters of the north with 

 little or no injury. The winter conditions which kill alfalfa are, how- 

 ever, not all of one kind. A moist fall, which prevents the plants from 

 becoming dormant, is conducive to winterkilling, whereas a dry fall, fol- 

 lowed by a winter of the same intensity, will result in a much lower 

 mortality. A winter of alternate freezing and thawing, resulting in heav- 

 ing of the soil, will destroy many alfalfa plants, through the breaking up 

 of the root system. The tissues of the plants may themselves also be killed 

 by successive thawings and freezings, just as the tissues of the buds of 

 peach trees are often killed in our climate. Winterkilling also occurs ex- 



