46 



have been favorable to start the young plants, as many as 120 plants 

 per square foot have been counted. As few as 10 strong young 

 plants per square foot fairly evenly distributed may be considered a 

 fair stand thick enough to leave. It is questionable whether a 

 very thick stand is as good as a thin or medium stand. Those who 

 advocate sowing a small amount of seed claim that the thinner sown 

 alfalfa starts stronger and will be more productive and remain a 

 good stand longer than that which is sown thicker. One advantage 

 perhaps of the thicker seeding on fertile land is the less coarse 

 growth of stem, which produces a finer quality of hay than the 

 larger, coarser growth resulting from thin seeding. 



Alfalfa Dies Out.- Alfalfa plants gradually die out, so that a 

 very thick stand may show a much smaller number of plants per 

 unit area two or three years after seeding. Some notes have been 

 taken on this point at the Kansas Experiment Station. In the spring 

 of 1903 an area of ten feet square was staked out in an alfalfa field 

 seeded in the fall of 1902. On June 18, 1903, 1,133 plants were 

 counted in this plot, or an average of 11.33 plants per square foot. 

 It will be observed that this count was made some six months after 

 seeding. On June 29, 1906, a recounting of this field showed only 

 670 plants, or 6.8 plants per square foot. On August 9, 1907, the 

 number of plants counted was 403, or 4.03 per square foot. This 

 field was plowed up in the fall of 1907. The decrease in the num- 

 ber of plants between the first and last countings, a period of fifty 

 months, was 730 per 100 square feet, which is a loss of 64.4 per 

 cent. (Kan. E. S. Bui. 155.) 



Pasture. Alfalfa should never be pastured during the first or 

 second season of its growth. Even an old field of alfalfa should be 

 grazed rather sparingly if a uniform stand is to be maintained. The 

 last crop of alfalfa is frequently pastured off, as other grazing is 

 often short in the autumn. Care should be taken not to pasture too 

 closely in the late autumn, as the plants should be allowed to go into 

 the winter with some growth upon the crowns. This will enable 

 them to withstand the winter better and also to store up reserve food 

 material for a vigorous early growth the following spring. The evil 

 effects of the trampling of the stock while grazing can be overcome 

 by disking to loosen up the compacted ground. 



All kinds of live stock may be pastured upon alfalfa. Horses 

 and sheep are more destructive to the stand of alfalfa than are cattle, 

 as they graze more closely. Hogs are apt to injure the stand by root- 

 ing unless their noses are ringed. The utilization of alfalfa for hog 

 pasture is in the aggregate probably the most extensive, as nearly 

 every farmer throughout the alfalfa regions makes a practice of this, 

 chiefly because it proves to be a very profitable method of utilizing 

 the crop. An average field of alfalfa will support continuously dur- 

 ing the growing season about ten large hogs to the acre and enable 

 them to make good gains, especially if a small quantity of grain is 

 fed in addition. The usual custom is to allow 1 pound of grain a 

 day for every hundred pounds live weight of the hogs. 



The principal drawback to the pasturing of cattle and sheep on 



