440 Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



duction of straight alfalfa meal have been built or acquired by the 

 company in western Kansas during the present year, which of itself 

 furnishes a fairly comprehensive idea of the growth and development 

 of the alfalfa feed milling industry during its comparatively brief 

 existence. To-day the Otto Weiss Milling Company sells alfalfa meal, or 

 its feeds containing an alfalfa meal mixture, in almost every feed- 

 consuming state. When a representative of the company appeared on the 

 New York Produce Exchange in 1906 and exhibited samples of these 

 feeds, business was suspended for a half hour while the members of that 

 organization received their first lesson concerning the new wonders of 

 alfalfa. 



In the meantime M. C. Peters, of Omaha, had established a plant in 

 the Nebraska City, which produced not only the chopped alfalfa and the 

 dry feeds in which it was a component part, but Mr. Peters went 

 further; he added beet syrup or molasses to the list of ingredients. 

 To-day the alfalfa meal and molasses mixture is undoubtedly one of the 

 most popular feeds on the market, and is in particular favor among 

 cattle feeders. 



For two or three years Mr. Weiss, Mr. Peters and one or two other 

 pioneers in the alfalfa milling industry experienced little competition. 

 Then, almost overnight it seemed, the obsession became prevalent through- 

 out Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado in fact, wherever a 

 community could boast of a few hundred acres of growing alfalfa that 

 a very necessary feature incidental to the plans and specifications for 

 an alfalfa mill was a spout through which the profits happy residue 

 from successful milling operation might be conveniently carried direct 

 to the growing balance over at the bank. 



The citizens of a hundred towns in the alfalfa belt encouraged the 

 establishment of mills, but in nearly every instance the stockholders 

 in the companies thus organized eventually discovered that, through 

 some error in the flow sheet, the suction fan seemed to pull money 

 through the "profit" spout the wrong way; the more continuous the 

 operation of the plant the greater the resulting drain on the baniv 

 account. 



The difficulties were many, but the more important may be classified 

 as mechanical, climatic and marketing. 



Most of the alfalfa-milling machinery first put on the market was 

 neither practical nor dependable. Even to-day the equipment for col- 

 lecting the dust-like particles of pulverized alfalfa leaves is far from 

 perfect, and in the early days of the industry one could readily ascer- 

 tain, even at a distance of four or five miles, whether or not an alfalfa 

 mill was in operation. If it was, the escaping dust mingling with the 

 surrounding atmosphere gave the plant the appearance of being cen- 

 trally located in a dense green fog a fog that represented a money 

 loss just as certainly as though actual greenbacks were floating to the 

 breezes, for it was that most valuable element, protein, contained in the 

 pulverized alfalfa leaves, that was lost in the dust cloud. 



Sparks caused by friction or the presence of a piece of metal in 

 the hay, or from locomotives passing the mill, when they came in con- 



