110 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
pottery turned up by the plow. Naturally the late 
treatment of these fields has been uniform, and as 
much manure has been applied to one spot as to an- 
other. When sown to alfalfa, however, a wonderful 
story is told, since the alfalfa plants, rooting deep, 
find stores of fertility in the subsoil, leached down 
perhaps from the old gardens or cow lots, and held 
from total escape by the presence in the subsoil of 
great amounts of limestone gravel and smaller par- 
ticles. The outline of these old gardens and cow lots 
will be found so distinctly defined by the luxuriant 
alfalfa growing thereon that one can say with cer- 
tainty, ‘‘Here stood the garden fence; there was the 
man’s cow lot.’’ 
Maintenance of Fertility—In America we have 
been wont to boast of the fertility of our farms. In 
truth, we have great stores of fertility, yet none too 
much, and in fact it is probable that there will not 
be found in America one farm in a thousand as fer- 
tile as it should be to yield a good profit. Other and 
older lands are more fertile than ours. The old 
fields of France have some of them been farmed for 
a thousand years, and none can say how much 
longer, and are producing today better than Ameri- 
ean fields; and in England the same story is often 
true. These fertile foreign fields are rich in carbo- 
nate of lime; and yet it is being added to and its 
store increased by each provident owner. No Ameri- 
ean farmer should be content with his stores of fer- 
tility as they exist today. His fields are not rich 
enough if he can profitably make them richer, and 
