No. 4.] GRASS AND CLOVER. 143 



the ground pretty well frozen until well along in the spring. 

 We find quite a difference, if we get a condition which you 

 have found in this State, where the frost goes down for 10 or 

 15 inches, or maybe more, and later a part of this thaws out, 

 and then another freeze conies and freezes down 3 or 4 

 inches, so there will be 3 or 4 inches of frozen ground up at 

 the surface, and then a portion not frozen, and then beneath 

 that some 6 or 7 inches of frozen ground, for just as soon as 

 that ground begins to heat, that snaps that root. Three or 

 four years ago all the alfalfa, nearly, in the State of New 

 York went out just with this samte sort of condition. Now, 

 I don't quite know how you. are going to remedy that diffi- 

 culty. I wouldn't want to say to keep hammering on alfalfa, 

 if it cannot be grown successfully here ; and I wouldn't want 

 to say to keep hammering on red clover, unless you prove 

 alfalfa cannot be grown successfully here, for you can grow 

 a whole lot more of tonnage with alfalfa than you can with 

 red clover under equally good conditions, and a field will 

 stay in from six to eight, ten or fifteen years ; I have known 

 some pieces to stay in from eighteen to twenty-two years, 

 and they are still giving good crops. In that way you have 

 got rid of the extra labor of breaking up and reseeding 

 again, and that is one thing we have to guard against in 

 New York State. 



Professor Hurd. I have seen well-drained soils in Maine, 

 and you couldn't make the alfalfa stay more than a year. 

 They have been unable to do it even on soils along the river, 

 where they are sandy. And we cannot get several crops in 

 New England, either ; we cannot get over two, and some- 

 times not two, — that is, in the northern part of New Eng- 

 land. 



Mr. Dawley. We used to have a man in Jefferson, N. Y., 

 who said they had nine months winter and three months late 

 in the fall. When you come down to a condition where you 

 can't get two crops, I don't quite understand. When did 

 you first start to cut off ? 



Professor Hurd. The last part of June, or early in July, 

 probably. 



Mr. Dawley. With us, on our farm, we commence cut- 



