ALFALFA IN CROP ROTATION. 241 



sod, after the rotation is once under way. This corn 

 ought to yield at least 85 bushels per acre, and may 

 yield more than 100 bushels. One field will be on 

 alfalfa sod simply, the other field will be corn stubble 

 heavily manured. Thus there will be about 7,000 

 bushels of corn, shelled measure. The next field will 

 be a 40-acre field sown down to alfalfa with barley, 

 either fall-sown alfalfa on barley stubble or spring- 

 sown alfalfa with barley as a nurse crop. In the one 

 case there will be about 1,000 bushels of barley grain, 

 maybe more, and no hay from ^his 40. Then there 

 will remain three fields 'of 40 acres each in estab- 

 lished alfalfa, one of them sown last year, one the 

 year before, one the year before that. These fields 

 will yield about 4 tons of hay per acre, maybe more, 

 or say 450 to 500 tons of hay. 



We have left about 60 acres for permanent pas- 

 ture, orchard, barn lots, woodland and so on. Now 

 let us sum up what we have as a yield from the 

 300 acre farm: corn, 7,000 bushels; barley, 1,000 

 bushels, or else, barley hay, with some alfalfa in it, 

 50 to 75 tons ; alfalfa hay, 450 to 500 tons. Pasture 

 left 60 acres, which will keep the work teams, cows 

 and pigs during summer and give a good place for 

 animals to run and exercise in cold weather when 

 it will not do to let them step on the alfalfa field. 



As working horses need little or no grain in winter 

 when they have good alfalfa hay it seems clear that 

 the 7,000 bushels of corn will about balance the 450 

 tons of hay. If there is need of more corn to feed 

 out the pigs it can be bought. If cattle or sheep are 



