UNIVERSALITY OF ALFALFA 1 7 



and promises to continue indefinitely, yielding 4 1-2 

 tons from three cuttings a year, and the whole of it 

 on gumbo soil where corn raising was a failure. An- 

 other declares, *'it must have a rich, sandy loam," and 

 forthwith from the deserts of Nevada, the sand hills of 

 Nebraska and the thin, worn, clay soils of the South 

 come reports of satisfactory yields. Such results are 

 significant, indicating better returns than any other crop 

 brings from these varied soils, and that few farmers 

 are justified in postponing the addition of alfalfa to 

 their agriculture because of supposed hindrance of soil 

 and climate. 



A XEAV YORK EXAMPLE 



As citing an example, and suggestive of the fact that 

 alfalfa not only grows but flourishes in the eastern states 

 where the claim has been made that it would not grow, 

 the following by the editor of the Rural New-Yorker, in 

 his journal of September 3, 1904, is forcibly to the point : 



"A farmer visiting the New York state fair this year 

 will do well to take time to look at some of the alfalfa 

 fields near Syracuse. Whether it means that the soil in 

 this locality is well suited to alfalfa, or that farmers have 

 learned how to grow it, it is a fact that the crop makes a 

 wonderful showing there. You find it everywhere — in 

 great billowy fields of green, along the roadsides — even 

 in vacant city lots. The crop crowds in whether the 

 seed is sown by hand, dropped from a passing load or 

 scattered by the wind. The majority of the farms show 

 great fields of it, and the character of farming is slowly 

 changing as more and more alfalfa is cut. On fruit 

 farms or small private places the crop is changing meth- 



