144 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ting before the first of June. This year on 85 acres we 

 were all through cutting by the 20th of June. We have to 

 Ijegin early, in order to get through. Another advantage, — 

 if our first crop of alfalfa is grown and cut from the 10th to 

 the 20th of June, it is apt to get very stalky, and if the 

 weather is at all wet, as it usually is about that time, it is 

 almost impossible to cure it ; but by cutting it when it is 

 greener you get a hay that I l^elieve is more digestible, — in 

 fact the analysis shows that it is, — and we don't have as 

 much trouble in curing it. Our next crop is ready to cut 

 again in about twenty-five 6r thirty days. Would yours be 

 ready in thirty days more ? 



Professor Hurd. No ; not much before the middle of 

 August or 1st of September. 



Mr. Dx\wLEY. I don't know your conditions well enough 

 to try to answer your question. With us, in each thirty 

 days after the time we cut the first crop We get another cut- 

 ting of alfalfa that will weigh somewhere from 1,200 to 1,800 

 pounds to the acre, the last one from the 12th to the middle, 

 perhaps, of September, which is usually next to the heavi- 

 est. The first is usually the heaviest, and the last one the 

 next to the heaviest ; those in the summer, with less rainfall, 

 do not show so heavy a tonnage. In reply to your other 

 (juestion, there is certainly some soil condition existing on 

 such land, that no observer can give, possibly, any compe- 

 tent opinion upon. The matter of alfalfa growing seems to 

 be made up of anomalies. Sometimes you will find it grow- 

 ing over a good, stiff hardpan in New York State, the very 

 thing we have been telling is of no use ; and still some fel- 

 low has got the pluck to go ahead, and those alfalfa roots 

 have gone down through that hardpan, and he has got a good 

 catch. I think I have a list of some twelve or fourteen 

 pieces of alfalfa grown in that way, scattered all over the 

 State, — one in particular as old as seven years. Fayette- 

 ville is about 8 miles from Syracuse, and Syracuse is in the 

 center of the State. The alfalfa which is grown in New 

 York State in the largest area will begin about 12 miles east 

 of Syracuse, and lies south of the Central Railroad, a strip 

 of from 1 to 5 miles wide, extending practically to the city 



