l6 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 



desert. The depleted cotton soils of Alabama and rich 

 corn lands of Illinois and Missouri each respond gener- 

 ously with profitable yields to the enterprising farmer, 

 while its accumulated nitrogen and the sub-soiling it ef- 

 fects are making the rich land more valuable and giving 

 back to the crop-worn the priceless elements of which it 

 has been in successive generations despoiled by a con- 

 scienceless husbandry. 



Its introduction into Maryland was largely through 

 the perseverance of Prof. W. T. L. Taliaferro of the 

 agricultural college, who says: "The future for alfalfa 

 for southern Maryland is bright, indeed, and with its 

 general introduction will come a new era of prosperity 

 for the 'lower counties.' Live stock farming will take the 

 place of tobacco farming. The fertilizing elements of 

 the soil will be concentrated at home instead of being 

 shipped abroad. Larger crops will be raised. Soil im- 

 provement will take the place of soil exhaustion; worn- 

 out farms will be restored to their original fertility." 



THE ORACLES REFUTED 



One by one the oracular statements of so-called ex- 

 perts have been shown at fault. One said, "it will grow 

 wherever corn will grow;" and as promptly men from 

 New York and Louisiana rise and say that they are 

 growing it where corn will not grow. Another declares, 

 "it will not grow over a hardpan or gumbo subsoil ;" 

 at once a New York man reports a good field of alfalfa 

 with roots fifteen feet long that pass through six inches 

 of hardpan which was so hard that it had to be broken 

 with a pick axe in following the root. A Kansas man 

 writes that he has eighty acres that has stood five years 



