CHAPTER XVIIl. 



Alfalfa Food Preparation 



The growing appreciation of alfalfa as a stock and 

 dairy food and the expense of baling and shipping it as 

 hay, the loss of leaves, and the liability to heat and mold 

 unless well cured, have led to the manufacture from it of 

 several food preparations. These in some cases are made 

 by simply grinding into a meal, and in others by mixing 

 the meal with molasses, or a variety of food products, and 

 assumed condiments and appetizers. 



The Colorado station in a feeding test concluded that 

 the ground alfalfa was not an economical feed for fatten- 

 ing pigs. With cut alfalfa hay costing $8 a ton and 

 ground alfalfa $i6 a ton the cost of producing one hun- 

 dred pounds of gain with the former was $2.62 and with 

 the alfalfa meal $3.12. With corn and cut alfalfa hay 

 fed in equal parts by weight the cost of producing one 

 hundred pounds of gain was %2.y2. With corn and 

 alfalfa meal fed in equal parts by weight the cost was 

 $3.96. It is not improbable, however, that better results 

 would have been obtained if a less proportion of ground 

 or cut alfalfa had been fed. It is also probable that the 

 hog's grinding machinery is better adapted to his digest- 

 ive apparatus than is any other. 



