94 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
Life of a Field—What then is the profitable 
duration of an alfalfa field? In California, in some 
of the dry valleys with loose subsoil, it may ap- 
parently endure for a century. The writer has 
walked over an alfalfa field in Texas that was 40 
years old; in Kansas perhaps 10 years, in Nebraska 
maybe the same, or nearly as long; in lowa probably 
four to six years. In Ohio alfalfa will endure for 
10 years on the best drained land, and maybe for 
much longer time, yet the greatest profit is found in 
keeping it only while it is at its maximum efficiency, 
and that is about four years. Why expect or care to 
have it last forever? Alfalfa is one of the easiest 
established of clovers, nor is it costly to seed. It 
powerfully enriches the soil. Why then care to 
have it endure forever? It is wiser to use it only 
while in its full vigor, then as disaster overtakes 
it and one plant here, another there, dies out, leav- 
ing the stand thin, to plow it and re-seed after tak- 
ing off a crop or two of grain or roots, or whatever 
is required. 
In Maryland there is in Harford county a type 
of soil with such acid subsoil that alfalfa will not 
last more than a year or two init. Yet some dairy- 
men have learned that it pays better to grow alfalfa 
than any other crop, leaving it stand only one year, 
then plowing and at once re-seeding. The practice 
is to sow in August, letting the alfalfa grow uncut 
that fall, then harvesting a good crop in late May, 
another in late June, a third crop about the first of 
August, at once plowing and thoroughly preparing 
