292 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
forty days after the alfalfa gets into the producing stage. A 
mistake may be made and too much water given it. In that 
case it will stop growing, turn yellow and have small brown 
spots on the leaves. Stop irrigating; cut once in eight or ten 
days for two or three times; irrigate quickly and not let the 
water stay on too long and it will come out all right again. 
We have about 400 acres in alfalfa here and it is doing fine 
except wnere we have dry spells and run short of water. We 
have had some of the leading men of the Republic here to look 
at our work, besides Prof. Alfred Burbank of California and 
others. They all congratulate us on our success, and have no 
fault to find. In curing the hay, we cut it one day, rake and 
cock it the next, then leave it in the field to cure a day or two 
according to the weather. We put it in the stack just a little 
moist and use a little salt, about 10 lbs. per ton. This keeps 
it a nice green color, and it holds its leaves when baling. But 
should the weather be damp or misty, we put it in the stack 
dry. 
These Mexicans all want to irrigate under the contour sys- 
tem, but by so doing they flood the entire surface of the ground, 
and the sun is so hot here that the land bakes hard so that the 
young plants cannot come through, or very few of them. Then 
they want to continue ponding the water, which should always 
be avoided, for the hot sun soon makes the water warm enough 
to scald the plants and kill them, or the water stands too long 
and drowns them, and turns the meadow into grass and weeds 
and then they say, the peons, “We don’t want alfalfa anyway.” 
But people here with energy do want alfalfa, and everything 
else. 
‘About here this alfalfa will grow 36” in thirty days, and start 
to bloom nicely if eut at that stage. It can be cut eight or nine 
times a year, but if let stand a little longer or until it gets a 
little more firm it will have more food value, and produce more 
tons of dry hay. By doing this it can be cut easily six times 
a year, and the plants can rest through the months of Decem- 
ber, January and February. In the first instance we cut a little 
over a ton, and the second about two tons per acre, each cut- 
ting. The hay is baled on the ranch. We have an engine and 
steel press, and the hay is sold in Torreon, Monterey and the 
different cities and is usually worth about $40 or $50 per ton 
(silver) by the car load, but recently it brought $75, single ton 
at Iilipinas, 
