No. 4.] ALFALFA FOR NEW ENGLAND. 143 



is large enough to cut in tJie spring until long after bard freez- 

 ing comes in the fall. 



Alfalfa is a lime loving plant. It has 34 per cent of lime 

 in its ash, while clover has but 20 per cent and timothy but 4 

 per cent. Growing animals, dairy cows and laying hens need 

 lime. They need more lime than we are able to supply in corn 

 and mill feeds ; hence alfalfa offers a plant that will supply 

 lime to make bone and milk and eggs. 



There is no need for a ISTew England farmer spending a cent 

 for feed unless he is feeding more stock than his given area of 

 land can support. I mean the ISTew England farmer does not 

 need to spend his hard-earned profits for mill feeds in order 

 to get nitrogen or protein. He can gTOw his protein at home 

 and enrich his soil at the same time. We live at the bottom 

 of an ocean of air that is about 200 miles deep and composed 

 of about four-fifths of nitrogen, and yet our profits are small 

 and our cost of living high because we have to pay so much for 

 protein, which we need in order to get that single element 

 nitrogen. Yet alfalfa, soy beans, Canada peas, vetch and the 

 clovers, including sweet clover, have associated with them on 

 their roots bacteria which cluster together into different shaped 

 but easily observed nodules, and which have the rare power of 

 taking from the air circulating in the soil that element nitro- 

 gen. These bacteria gather more nitrogen than they need ; they 

 gather enough to feed the plant and to lay up an excess in the 

 soil to feed the corn, potatoes or other crops which follow the 

 alfalfa. The story seems too good to tell. You can have your 

 cake and eat it. But alfalfa is going to make the man who 

 succeeds in growing it master of the situation. The alfalfa 

 grower is going to be the man who can buy the adjoining farm. 

 The alfalfa plant is going to bring back to ISTew England the 

 Berkshire, the Chester White and the Poland China hogs, to 

 help lift the mortgage off the old New England farm. Alfalfa 

 is going to enable the farmer in the east to make more on the 

 small farm than the mid-westerner makes on his larger farm 

 of $200 an acre land. Alfalfa is going to make the New Eng- 

 land hen cackle two months longer each year. Alfalfa is going 

 to add materially to the beauty of the New England landscape. 



