74 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. ' 



A little later than this Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant, who had 

 charge of the state experiment station at Geneva and was very 

 much interested in alfalfa growing, recommended its planting 

 quite largely and many fields were put out. The failures in this 

 state outnumber the successes greatly; still in the townships of 

 Onondago, Dewitt, Geddes and Manlius, Onondago county, and 

 Sullivan in Madison county, there are to he found many acres 

 of very successful growth, and on high lands in these counties 

 four-fifths of all the hay cut last year was alfalfa. 



At the present writing alfalfa is being grown con- 

 siderably over nearly the whole of the state of New 

 York, but chiefly in the limestone regions of central 

 New York, its greatest use being probably in Onon- 

 daga county. There is much limestone in New York 

 and the farmers are generally intelligent and enter- 

 prising. It would seem that as soon as they realize 

 that by abundant use of carbonate of lime, making 

 their soils somewhat like tho'se alkaline soils of Colo- 

 rado and California, they can grow alfalfa as well as 

 the West, and that alfalfa in New York is worth fully 

 double what it is in the West, they will take the mat- 

 ter up in serious earnest and spread its culture fast 

 and wide. 



It is interesting to know that in old Virginia, where 

 once George Washington and Thomas Jefferson vied 

 with each other in growing lucerne, there are now at 

 least itwo great farms growing alfalfa in hundreds 

 if not thousands of tons as is done in the West, and 

 perhaps more interest is 'shown in alfalfa culture in 

 Virginia at this time than in any other state along 

 the Atlantic seaboard. 



Of the southern states Alabama, Mississippi, Ark- 

 ansas and Louisiana are doing most with alfalfa, 



