CULTURE OF ALFALFA OR LUCERNE. Ipl 



average land it will be found that the plan of sowing in 

 drills would be the best. 



Mr. Crozier's crop, the second year, averaged eighteen 

 tons green to the acre, and about six tons when dried as 

 hay. For his section (the latitude of New York) he finds 

 the best date of sowing is the first week in May, and a 

 good cutting can be had in September. The next season 

 a full crop is obtained, when it is cut, if green, three or 

 four times. If to be used for hay, it is cut in the condi- 

 tion of ordinary Red Clover, in blossom. It then makes 

 after that two green crops if cut; and sometimes the last 

 one, instead of being cut, is fed on the ground by sheep 

 or cattle. 



Mr. E. M. Sargent, Macon, Georgia, writing to me 

 under date March 6th, 1883, says: " I consider Alfalfa to 

 be the most valuable forage plant that can be used in this 

 section of the country; that is, the entire cotton belt, or 

 north of it, if the land is sandy without a clay subsoil too 

 near the surface. Planters are just beginning to find out 

 its merits; and no poverty of stock will ever occur where 

 Alfalfa is raised. In the summer of 1 88 1, when every- 

 thing else was parched here with heat and drought, this 

 alone was prompt in its maturity for the mower. It 

 should be cut for hay when in blossom, and can easily be 

 cut three or four times here wherever the land is in fairly 

 good condition. 



" Those who do not succeed with it, sow it broadcast 

 and surrender it to the hogs early in the season. Those 

 who do succeed, sow in drills eighteen inches apart and 

 cultivate early." 



It will be seen that Mr. Sargent advises drills much 

 wider than I recommend, which I presume is to admit 

 the horse hoe, but a quicker crop undoubtedly would be 

 got at fourteen inches apart; and by use of the hand 



