CROPS FOR SOILING AND FODDER ALFALFA. 87 



The land is plowed, then harrowed and rolled, early in the spring. Then 

 I sow at the rate of sixteen pounds to the acre. It is sown broad- 

 cast and covered with the brush harrow as early in the spring as the 

 ground will admit being worked. For a soiling crop I do not use 

 any mixtures. I sometimes cut it early in the fall, getting a fair crop. 

 I have even cut it the second time in the fall of the same season as 

 sown, but that is a rare occurrence. The next season I have taken 

 three or four cuttings from it. After reading the article that you have 

 written on this subject I do not know that I can add anything to it. 



CULTURE OF ALFALFA OR LUCERN (MEDICAGO SATIVA.) 



[Written by Peter Henderson on his return from atrip to Florida in February, 1883.] 



In a country so wide-spread and diversified as the United States, 

 it is not to be wondered at that a crop that is valued in some local- 

 ities is unknown in others. 



But it is somewhat surprising that, in many of the Southern States, 

 where the want of forage is so much felt, the culture of a plant 

 so admirably adapted for their soil and climate has so long been 

 neglected. In a visit to Florida, in February, 1883, I was impressed, 

 as every Northern man must be, with the utter dearth of forage 

 plants, and as a consequence, the hungry and meagre, starved looking 

 cattle. To my inquiries everywhere, the same reply was given that 

 no good grass or clover could be found to stand the heat and drought 

 of their long summers. Fortunately, in alluding to the subject, 

 while in the company of Mr. R. Bronson, of St. Augustine, Florida, he 

 promptly showed a practical solution of the difficulty, by taking me 

 to a patch of Alfalfa about twenty-five feet by one hundred, or only 

 about the one-sixteenth part of an acre. From that little patch Mr. B. 

 assured me that he had fed a cow during the summer months, getting 

 as fine milk and butter as ever he got North; and further said that twice 

 that area, or one-eighth part of an acre, would be ample to supply a 

 cow with food during the entire season. The land used by Mr. 

 Bronson for his experiment with Alfalfa was identical with the 

 thousands of acres in his immediate vicinity, which was given over to 

 the Blue Palmetto and scrubby pines, through which the goat-like 

 cattle browse out a miserable existence. Mr. Bronson, though only 

 an amateur, is a careful observer, and an enthusiastic student in 

 everything that relates to agriculture. In the culture of Alfalfa for 

 Florida and other Southern latitudes, he advises that the crop be 

 sown early in the fall early enough to attain a height of four or five 

 inches before growth is arrested by cold weather, in Florida say 

 from 1st to 15th of October. 



