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 be 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 those 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 ‘two 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, 
