THE STARTING, CARE AND CURING OF ALFALFA. 



BY B. F. SHUART. 



UNDER proper conditions and skillful manage- 

 ment alfalfa is a crop of magnificent possibili- 

 ties. But the difference in the practical value of the 

 results between perfection and mediocrity in growing 

 this wonderful plant is so great that no one who con- 

 templates undertaking its culture should rest content 

 with a low ideal of achievement. Let the beginner 

 resolve at the outset that he will rest satisfied only 

 with the highest attainable success, and that he will 

 spare no pains which may prove necessary to its 

 realization. The following suggestions with refer- 

 ence to the management of alfalfa are not offered 

 with any pretense to infallibility, but simply as out- 

 lining the methods by which the writer was enabled, 

 after having experienced his full share of failures, to 

 reduce the successful cultivation of alfalfa to a basis 

 of certainty. 



SELECTING AND PREPARING THE GROUND. 



In starting alfalfa the first point claiming consider- 

 ation is the selection and preparation of the soil. 

 Bench land is preferable to bottom land, and sandy 

 loam is more desirable than clay, though some clay 

 soils answer well for alfalfa, but the plants are longer 

 in becoming established. Alfalfa should not be sown 

 on sod for the reason that so valuable and permanent 

 a crop should never be laid on a surface rough and 

 difficult of irrigation. 



The plowing should, if possible, be done in the fall. 

 In the spring, before seeding, the land should be 

 carefully graded to a surface so even as to obviate 

 the necessity for the irrigator ever to step into the 

 growing crop to force the water with the shovel. 

 Whoever neglects to do this will, when too late, have 

 abundant and unceasing cause to repent his folly. 

 The labor and cost of grading land at the outset are 

 infinitesimal compared with the aggregate labor and 

 loss incurred in irrigating rough, uneven land twice 

 or thrice each season for an indefinite term of years. 

 After grading, and immediately before sowing the 

 seed, the land should be flooded. Irrigation at this 

 stage serves a threefold purpose. First, it reveals 

 the high spots, if any remain, and these should at 

 once be worked down and irrigated. As soon there- 

 after as the ground will bear working, the seed 

 should be sown. 



Secondly, irrigation before seeding insures the 

 prompt and complete germination of the seed. This 

 is a point of vital importance, for without a dense 

 and uniform stand of plants it is not possible to make 

 a high quality of alfalfa hay. If the stand is thin on 

 the ground the stalks will be coarse, woody and indi- 



gestible, and in curing the leaves will dry and fall off 

 before the stems are sufficiently cured. But if the 

 stand is thick the stems will be fine and the foliage 

 will be so abundant that the curing process can be 

 effected evenly and without perceptible loss of 

 leaves. 



One who has not had experience in feeding alfalfa, 

 especially to sheep, cannot realize the immense 

 superiority for feeding purposes of a high quality of 

 alfalfa hay, such as I have described, over a coarse, 

 stemmy quality. The one is peaches, while the other 

 is but the stones, and the substitution of the one for 

 the other will produce a marked change in the gen- 

 eral appearance of a band of sheep within forty- 

 eight hours. 



RESULTS WHEN IRRIGATED. 



In starting alfalfa, I am aware that the almost 

 universal practice is to trust to the fickle and scanty 

 showers for moisture, or in the absence of these, to 

 sheer luck. Doubtless now and then a fairly satis- 

 factory stand is secured in this way. I followed this 

 system myself during the earlier years of my exper- 

 ience as an alfalfa grower, in Montana, with the result 

 that fully one-half my efforts resulted in flat failures, 

 while I never, in a single instance, attained to a degree 

 of success comparable with that which I realized uni- 

 formly after I began to irrigate before seeding. 

 Judging from an observation of alfalfa fields in several 

 of the arid States, I am forced to believe that the 

 great majority of alfalfa growers are practically igno- 

 rant of what constitutes a strictly first-class stand of 

 alfalfa. And this because the system of seeding in 

 vogue is one which depends for its success upon a 

 combination of favoring conditions which rarely hap- 

 pens. The danger is, when rain is depended upon, 

 that the sun and wind will dry out the soil to the 

 depth of the seed before it can take sufficient root to 

 survive. I have had whole fields perish in this way 

 after the seed was well sprouted. But irrigation im- 

 mediately before seeding, completely obviates this 

 danger by supplying the soil with a fund of moisture 

 compared with which a copious shower is a bagatelle 

 and which causes the seed to spring with a rapidity 

 and completeness scarcely attainable otherwise. 



A third advantage secured by irrigation before 

 seeding is that it supplies the earth with a reservoir 

 of moisture sufficient to sustain the plants in un- 

 checked and vigorous growth until they are strong 

 enough to bear irrigation without injury. The critical 

 time with alfalfa is the first six weeks of its growth. 

 Flooding during this period is quite certain to give 



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