PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES 245 



ripe, it is of a rich orovvn or mahogany color. The first 

 crop is preferable for seed, and should be cut and stacked 

 as the hay is. It can be left and threshed when most con- 

 venient, but the longer it remains in the stack the more 

 easily its threshes. The ordinary threshing machine does 

 for the alfalfa, but the seed must be fanned to be market- 

 able. Six bushels is a common yield, and the cost of 

 threshing and cleaning is probably 25 cents per bushel. 

 The price of hay has ranged from $5 to $15 per ton, and 

 of seed, from 8 to 20 cents per pound. The straw has 

 almost no value, as it is cut up very fine, and can be used 

 only where it is threshed ; if fed there, it is very fattening. 

 For feeding horses for slow work, the hay is better than 

 clover or timothy. For fattening purposes, it is the best 

 in the world, for, while the animal lays on fat, it is never 

 feverish, but always healthy. For pasturing cattle and 

 swine, alfalfa is superior to anything else, and, after it 

 is mown, it makes very excellent feed for horses and 

 sheep. If the alfalfa is wet, ruminants pastured on it 

 bloat and die very quickly. It is not properly a pasture 

 plant, and such animals should be kept away from it, 

 but the hay, properly cured, is superior to any other food 

 raised for fattening purposes. There is no difficulty in 

 ridding land of the plant, as a good team and sharp plow 

 will cut it out without any trouble. I have plowed fields 

 of alfalfa under and put in oats, obtaining three or four 

 times the usual yield, and have known of 50 bushels of 

 wheat to the acre on broken alfalfa land. 



L. W. Markham, Prowers county. — I have had four 

 years' experience with alfalfa. Have under my charge 

 500 acres. It is on both second bottom and upland ; part 



