144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



American ingenuity will soon enable some Yankee manufac- 

 turers to put onto the market an alfalfa shredded biscuit that 

 will do more than any patent breakfast food or medicine now 

 on the market to make efficient men and women out of our 

 boys and girls. Alfalfa besides putting the kink into the pig's 

 tail while he heljDS lift the mortgage, besides enabling the old 

 cow to give more milk, the hen to lay more eggs and the boys 

 and girls to be stronger of bone and larger of muscle, besides 

 adding to the beauty of the "New England landscape, alfalfa 

 is to add to the contentment and happiness of the people by 

 putting dollars into the farmer's pockets, and thus enabling 

 him to have better homes, to support better schools and churches, 

 and thus fulfill Dean Bailey's four requirements for the real 

 husbandman: "To make a comfortable living; to leave the 

 farm better than he found it; to rear a family carefully and 

 well ; to be of service to the community." 



How TO GROW AlFAI^FA. 



To grow alfalfa successfully there are six things, each of 

 which must be very carefully attended to. You may think 

 as others have thought that you can get paying crops of alfalfa 

 by leaving one or more of the six steps imdone, but experience 

 will teach you in time that each and every one of the six things 

 must be carefully taken care of. We call these six requisites 

 the six alfalfa secrets, as follows : — 



1. Good, well-drained soil. 



2. A good, hard seed bed. 



3. Plenty of the right kind of lime. 



4. Good, acclimated, northern grown seed. 



5. Good, abundant soil or seed inoculation. 



6. Good harvesting and curing of the hay. 



Good Soil. 

 You will notice that our first requirement is good soil. Al- 

 falfa must have liberal feeding. It is true that alfalfa when 

 once well established will come nearer making its own way, 

 while giving paying crops, than will any other farm crop; yet 



