306 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 



about $1.50 a ton. The cost of baling is about $2 a ton^ 

 the popular weight for bales being about 100 pounds. 

 An average yield of seed is from 300 to 500 pounds to 

 the acre. Threshers take one-sixth toll, and can thresh 

 about 100 bushels in a day. The common machinery 

 saves only about two-thirds of the seed. A bushel of seed 

 weighs more than 60 pounds, and we put 175 pounds in 

 a two-bushel seamless sack. The average selling price of 

 the seed is about $3.50 a bushel. I have one piece of 

 land, containing 60 acres, not irrigated, valued at $30 

 an acre, from which, for ten years, I have cut one crop 

 of hay, and one of seed, and realized an annual net profit 

 of $1000 cash. As compared with clover and timothy 

 for feeding farm animals, my opinion is that alfalfa will 

 fatten quicker, but will not go so far. The pasturage is 

 profitable and satisfactory for horses and sheep; for hogs, 

 one acre of it is as good as 2^ of Red clover, and for 

 cattle, one acre is as good as two of clover, provided the 

 land is dry. On wet land, the clover is better for cattle, 

 and, as to bloating, the danger is just the same from the 

 two plants. In my opinion, the plant will do well on side- 

 hills, where the drainage is good, if the land is plowed 

 deep, and the seed drilled in two inches deep and rolled 

 with a heavy roller. Once started, the plant lives almost 

 forever, on any soil, unless the wrong kind of a winter 

 strikes it. I have an alfalfa root, taken up in digging a 

 well, that is 21 feet long. The roots of alfalfa are sure to 

 find the water, if anywhere at all within reasonable reach. 

 John Tones, Utah county. — I have raised alfalfa 20 

 years, and now have 250 acres, mostly on sandy loam 

 upland; have some on bottom land, where it grows too 



