CROPS AND SOIL IMPROVEMENT 



corn, and the manure made from the hay helps to 

 solve the farmer's fertility problem. 



Fertility and Feeding Value. Vivian says 

 that " the problem of the profitable maintenance 

 of fertility is largely a question of an economic 

 method of supplying plants with nitrogen." The 

 greatest value of alfalfa to eastern farming lies 

 in its ability to convert atmospheric nitrogen into 

 organic nitrogen. It has no equal in this respect 

 for relatively long crop-rotations, storing in its 

 roots and successive growths of top far more 

 nitrogen within three or four years than is possible 

 to any other of our legumes. A good stand of 

 alfalfa, producing nine crops of hay in the three 

 years following the season of seeding, will produce 

 from nine to twelve tons of hay. Good fields, 

 under the best conditions, have produced far more, 

 but the amounts named are within reach of most 

 growers on land adapted to the plant. A ton of 

 hay, on the average, contains as much nitrogen 

 as five or six tons of fresh stable manure. Thus 

 there comes to the farm a great amount of plant- 

 food, to be given the land in the manure, and in 

 addition the roots and stubble have stored in the 

 ground enough nitrogen to feed a successive corn 

 crop, and a small grain crop which may follow 



[60] 



