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Mr. Jared G. Smith, the Assistant Agrostologist of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, states that ten pigs put on a field of it will 

 gain 100 pounds each during the season from May to September. He 

 says that pigs will come out of the field in autumn in capital condition to 

 fatten with corn or small grain. For a hog pasture alfalfa should be 

 mowed once or twice during the summer so that young and tender her- 

 bage may be supplied, which is more nutritious than the forage from 

 older plants. 



ALFALFA HAY It requires much skill to properly cure alfalfa 

 hay. Being ranker usually than red clover, and cut when the first blooms 

 begin to appear, it is full of sap and must be managed with great discre- 

 tion and judgment. The best method of saving the hay is to cut it in the 

 morning after the dew has been dissipated. It should lie in the sun until 

 it is wilted, then raked into windrows; after remaining for 24 hours it may 

 be carried to the barns or open sheds, or stacked in the field. It should 

 be handled just as little as possible. It sheds its leaves much more easily 

 than red clover and, as the leaves are the most nutritious part of the hay, 

 handling greatly impairs its value. 



In wet weather it is very difficult to save alfalfa hay without mould- 

 ing. If a rain should fall upon it, while in the windrow, hard enough to 

 pass through it, it should be shaken up just as soon as the sun comes out, 

 but the sun does great damage to it by drying the leaves and so causing 

 them to shatter when the hay is being handled. Therefore the best plan 

 in such a case is to throw the windrows into small cocks before the leaves 

 are thoroughly dry, but these cocks must be small enough for the air to 

 circulate through them. A hard rain will diminish the value of the hay, 

 under any circumstances, fully one-half. If very much injured it should 

 be used as a top-dressing. It will be more valuable employed for this 

 purpose than for hay. In sub-tropical regions the hay may be cut seven 

 or eight times a year. The writer has seen it growing in the northern 

 part of Mexico with such luxuriance that it seemed almost impossible for 

 an ordinary mower to cut it. In the State of Chihuahua, upon bottom 

 lands where alfalfa is irrigated after each cutting, the yield sometimes 

 reaches fifteen tons in a single year. It is cut every four weeks and the 

 seasons last from February to November. With the stimulating effects 

 of heat and moisture upon the rich soils in the valleys of that region the 

 amount of hay which may be obtained from a single acre is often great 

 enough to supply the demands of a considerable ranch. Alfalfa hay is 

 rich in protein but it is deficient in fat and carbohydrates. It is therefore 

 recommended that some of the coarser fodders,, such as wheat or oat 

 straw, millet or root crops, be added to the feed. Prof. Smith says that 

 "one ton of alfalfa hay and three tons of green fodder will furnish food for 

 one milch cow of a thousand pound weight for 136 days without notable 

 loss of any of the digestible compounds in the forage." 



There is no better hay, however, for all kinds of domestic animals and 

 especially for young and growing cattle and horses, and for sheep. 

 Alfalfa is well adapted to the use of persons living in small towns or vil- 

 lages who have a lot they wish to devote to hay for a horse and a cow. 

 No other kind of forage crop will equal it in the quantity and quality of 



