making a suitably balanced ration, either for 

 fattening animals or those maintained for the 

 production of milk 



Possessing many, if not all the good qualities 

 of the much-prized red clover, besides others, 

 some of which are its growing luxuriantly in a 

 wide territory where clover can not be grown at 

 all, and yielding from two to three times as much 

 of feed equally nutritious, along with being a 

 remarkable soil renovator, it is esteemed as in- 

 deed a rich acquisition to a region where it flour- 

 ishes so abundantly. In spite of the fact that 

 clover is so reliably and profitably grown in the 

 eastern counties, alfalfa, regarded by many as 

 only adapted to a semi-arid region, has by sheer 

 merit forced its way into these counties until one- 

 sixth of the State's entire alfalfa field is now 

 found in the clover-growing counties. In fact, 

 52 per cent, of the alfalfa acreage at the present 

 time is in the eastern half of the State, although 

 in the western coun^"ies the acreage in proportion 

 to population is greater than in the eastern coun- 

 ties, all of which indicates the high appreciation 

 shown the crop in all directions. 



Its largest annual yields, of from four to six and 

 more tons per arre, are obtained in the rich bottom 

 lands of the Arkansas Valley, where abundant 

 moisture is found not many feet from the surface, 

 and where three, four and sometimes as many as 

 five cuttings are made in a single season; the 

 same applies also to lands favorably situated for 

 irrigation. Those who have raised and used 

 alfalfa longest and most esteem it with increas- 

 ing favor, and it seems likely to be more and 

 more extensively produced as the years go by. 

 As a soil renovator it has been described in the 

 following language : 



"There are some silent subsoilers that do their 

 work with ease and, in their way, as effectually 

 as any team or plow ever hitched, although in 

 some lands the use of a subsoil plow is essential 

 to the best beginning of such work. The clover 

 plant is righteously famed as one of these, and 

 alfalfa is its superior. Its roots work Sunday 

 as well as Saturday, night and day ; they strike 



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