154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



rior to any of the rock phosphates, and the truth is that after 

 eighteen years the acid phosphate's superiority to the rock is 

 greater than it was at the start, — considerably greater. 



Question. I would like to ask the speaker, or any one 

 through the speaker, whether there has been any successful 

 experience with alfalfa in New England on a typical granite 

 hill farm, with a subsoil coming pretty close to the top? I hope 

 some little time will be devoted to this side of the problem. I 

 know of cases where it has been grown successfully on favor- 

 able soils, but don't know of any where it has been grown on 

 the typical New England hill soil. 



Dr. H. J. Wheeler. We have a modest gentleman here who 

 can answer that question, I think, — Mr. Andrews of Vermont. 



Mr. Edward R. Andrews. I will answer that question be- 

 cause for six or seven years I have been growing alfalfa on just 

 that sort of hill land in Vermont. I cannot say that the sub- 

 soil is clay because it is not. I suppose the soil is what is 

 called clay loam, that is, it is deep rich loam. It is hard to find 

 the subsoil in many places. There is not any question in my 

 mind but what alfalfa can be grown on these sloping hills. 

 My farm is made up of many of that kind, — not deep slopes, 

 but a gradual slope, and when I first began I made the usual 

 mistakes. I inoculated the seed with the inoculating material 

 furnished by the Department at Washington, and not much 

 was known about it at that time. I wanted to sow the seed 

 right away, so I let it dry in the sun. That did not succeed. 

 Another field that I tried not very successfully was on sod 

 ground, — well, the grass came up and nearly killed out the 

 alfalfa. Yet every year since then — that must have been five 

 years ago — we have cut off a great deal of alfalfa. One year, 

 1912, I sowed quite a large piece of alfalfa, and that year the 

 ground was bare nearly all winter; no snow was on it, and in 

 the neighborhood of my farm clover was killed out, but my 

 alfalfa was not, and I have had crops from that field in 1913, 

 1914 and 1915. 



I used marl for a good many years which came from New 

 York and cost me $7 a ton, including freight, but last spring 

 a concern was started in Vermont, from which ground lime- 

 stone could be purchased at $1.50 a ton, and in my neighbor- 



