NEW CROPS 113 



it is as a forage plant that it finds greatest usefulness in Illinois. 

 Practically every Illinois farmer should raise at least a few soybeans, 

 for all they ask is a good seed bed and inoculation. Nearly every- 

 body can find some space for a plant which will make a hay equal 

 to alfalfa, or a grain as good or better than cotton-seed or oil meal ; 

 which will considerably increase the amount of silage he can grow 

 per acre, or make a wonderful combination with corn to pasture off 

 with live stock; which will tremendously reinforce his cornstalk 

 pasture ; or which, grown alone and plowed under, will add as much 

 nitrogen to the soil as will clover. Finally, when a commercial de- 

 mand becomes established for the seed, on account of its exceptionally 

 high oil content, there will come to be a regularly established market 

 for seed. 



We need much new information ; and we need to have it, as well 

 as what we already know, much more widely disseminated before these 

 three little-used legumes will really find their places in our agri- 

 culture. It has been but a few years since no less valued and influ- 

 ential a friend and adviser than Mr. Frank Mann, when asked to 

 criticize our Champaign county farm and our practises said among 

 other things that he believed we had too large a proportion of our 

 land in legumes to be practical and economical. He said that that was 

 a criticism he hesitated to make, but that it was his honest conviction. 

 The criticism had our earnest consideration, but we have never 

 obtained the consent of our minds to change our rotation, and we still 

 doubt if it would be profitable to do so. Our rotation being corn, 

 soybeans, wheat, and clovers, half the cultivated area is given over to 

 the exclusive occupancy of legumes each year, and even wheat and 

 corn have to share their homes with clovers and soybeans. Alfalfa 

 we use, too, but not in the rotation. 



THE PLACE OF ALFALFA 



Alfalfa being a perennial, we have found needs more than two 

 seasons to attain perfection. This fact, together with the exacting 

 requirements of the plant, and the further fact that the average sized 

 corn-belt field in alfalfa would be like the tail that once wagged a 

 dog, has given us pause whenever we have considered putting alfalfa 

 into our rotation. The fact, too, that its harvest season conflicts with 

 cultivation of the corn crop and sometimes with wheat harvest, makes 

 it difficult to distribute labor economically, when too much of it is 

 undertaken. But alfalfa is much too useful and beautiful a crop to 

 be ignored. 



