142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



cut in the town I live in and the two towns adjoining on the 

 east and west is alfalfa. This year, keeping something like 

 a cow for every 3 acres of tillable land in that section, hun- 

 dreds of carloads of alfalfa are being shipped out of it. The 

 price being paid for it in the barn now is somewhere be- 

 tween $10.50 and $11.50, and our farmers are growing some- 

 thing like 3 tons per acre. So you see we are very well 

 satisfied with it, and have nothing to complain of, and 

 haven't very much land for sale. The last fifteen years 

 have seen a wonderful upheaval in agriculture in that section. 

 Some of the brightest young men we have have come back 

 on the farm, and are doing better than those who have gone 

 to town. It isn't a question of keeping the young men on 

 the farm now, but getting a farm to keep the young men on. 

 So far as alfalfa is concerned in that vicinity, we don't 

 realize we need inoculation. Of course we do, but the rea- 

 son we don't realize it is, alfalfa hay is being gradually 

 drawn from the central part a little further every year ; the 

 manure is spread on the fields, and, while we don't know 

 that inoculation comes from that, the indications show that 

 it does. Also, over in New York State we find that in most 

 sections the inoculation is needed. Where sweet clover has 

 been growing for a period of years, naturally, or because of 

 inoculation, we find very little trouble in growing alfalfa, — 

 it almost always catches there. We find, too, if you can get 

 a start where the field is half inoculated, ])y turning it in 

 while in a vigorous condition in the spring, and sowing again, 

 after doing this once or twice, the whole field will become 

 inoculated. If you can find a few plants of alfalfa growing 

 in a section, if the conditions of drainage and acidity are 

 right, I can see no reason w^hy you cannot grow alfalfa. I 

 believe most of the failures that I have got track of in this 

 State and in New England have come from fields where the 

 soil conditions are not right ; and I can't quite see how you 

 are going to make them right. We have a great deal more 

 snow, I believe, as a general thing, than you have here ; and 

 as the speaker well said, the snow comes on very many years, 

 as it has this year, before the ground is frozen ; the ground 

 freezes under the snow, and the snow lies there and keeps 



