28 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 



Before seed is purchased it should be tested for purity 

 and germination. The adage that a dollar saved is a 

 dollar earned well applies here; it is an easy matter to 

 waste a dollar on seed, and when profit depends on avoid- 

 ance of useless expenditure the use of inferior seed 

 points its own moral. 



IMPORTANCE OF SIMFLAR CONDITIONS 



The farmer who has brought himself to the point of 

 introducing alfalfa upon his farm should be extremely 

 careful in the selection of seed. In the first place it is 

 important that he should sow such as is produced in 

 about the same latitude as his farm and from a region of 

 about the same rainfall, thus keeping in a line of accli- 

 mation, and with the habits and habitat, as it were, of 

 what he is seeking to raise. Next, he should not sow 

 seed raised under irrigation if he is in a non-irrigation 

 region. A Michigan farmer, for example, should sow 

 seed grown as near to his latitude as possible, say, from 

 Wisconsin, Minnesota or the Dakotas, or not south of 

 Nebraska or Kansas. It is questionable, at present, 

 whether it is wise or profitable to attempt raising alfalfa 

 seed in the more humid districts of the eastern and south- 

 ern parts of the United States. It may be economy to 

 leave the raising of seed to those regions with the least 

 summer rainfall, keeping always in mind the securing of 

 seed grown under conditions nearly like those to which 

 the seed is to be introduced. 



Speaking of the alleged different varieties of alfalfa, 

 the seed of which is urged upon buyers l^y seedsmen, the 

 editor of the Oklahoma Farm Journal pertinently says : 



