414 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



$300,000,000. With alfalfa to help cheapen the pro- 

 duction at least $100,000,000 may be saved. 



This is not nearly all the story, either. Hog farm- 

 ing is not usually a type of farming adapted to soil- 

 building or even conserving of fertility. Hog farm- 

 ing usually means a farm devoted to corn and a few 

 small muddy yards where all the corn is dumped to 

 be devoured by the imprisoned swine. Thus in these 

 small yards accumulates all the fertility of the farm. 

 The net result is weeds, jimpson weed, dog fennel, 

 all sorts of vile things, while the fields grow steadily 

 poorer and poorer as there is nothing to go back 

 from the hog feeding. Now with the use of alfalfa 

 and feeding much of the corn in the alfalfa fields the 

 land is renewed, its fertility increased, it carries 

 more stock and becomes more easily tilled. The dif- 

 ference between alfalfa farming with hogs and hog 

 farming without alfalfa is that where alfalfa is lack- 

 ing the land is steadily destroyed, where it is had it 

 is steadily built.' 



