PtBNTY OF FOOD FOR AI,FAI<FA 1 9 



alfalfa will be a failure because it can get no benefit 

 from the water below. 



Alfalfa seems to reach its limit of altitude at 8,000 

 feet, and flourishes from this down to sea-level in 

 varying degree. It will not endure standing or an 

 excess of water as long as corn or wheat will, and it is 

 more readily affedled by cold and wet together than 

 ordinary crops. Such conditions obtain in New Eng- 

 land, and render the crop more hazardous there than, 

 in any other section of the United States. The late 

 fall rains, followed by wet snows and freezing rains 

 together, sometimes leave the surface of the land 

 covered for months with ice. This destroys alfalfa, 

 and many times the ordinary grasses. 



PLRNTY OF- FOOD FOR ALFALFA 



The alfalfa plant, being a nitrogen gatherer diredlly 

 from the air by means of the tubercles on its roots, we 

 need in considering its food requirements to take into 

 account only the mineral elements. Prof. William P. 

 Headden, of the Colorado Experiment Station, who 

 made careful chemical analyses of the plant and the 

 soil upon which it grows, for the purpose of determin- 

 ing its food requirements and the store available for 

 such needs, found that the first 11^ feet of Colorado 

 soil contains enough phosphoric acid for 1,700 crops 

 of 4^ tons each; enough potash for 954 crops; enough 

 lime for 8,500 crops; enough magnesium for 1,000 

 crops; and enough sulphur for 600 crops. It will be 

 seen by this that the supply is practically inexhaust- 

 ible, since alfalfa ten years old may and often does 

 extend its root explorations to double or treble this 

 depth. 



