296 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
ing which time if it has had water enough it will 
have grown 36 inches. It may there be cut eight or 
nine times in a year, but even there it is better to cut 
it only about six times in a year, letting it rest during 
the months of December, January and February. In 
that climate on suitable soil the yield is about a ton 
to each cutting. 
Let me repeat with all possible emphasis, in re- 
gions where alfalfa is not very strong and is apt to 
winterkill, do not cut too late in the fall. Leave al- 
ways a good growth to protect the crowns and to 
catch snow. Do not graze late in the fall. 
Western readers will wonder at this caution. I 
have had 2,000 cattle on a 99 acre alfalfa meadow 
most of the winter, coming and going, and have seen 
no injury in Utah. There the soil was dry, no ice 
formed on alfalfa crowns and alfalfa was markedly 
at home. <A similar treatment in Ohio would have 
spelled certain ruin to the alfalfa. 
Keep off the Fields in Winter—Anywhere east of 
the Missouri River it is very bad practice to go on 
the fields at all in winter with animals or wagons. 
Wherever horses tread or wheels go will be lines 
of dead or dying alfalfa plants. The alfalfa field 
should be a sacred place after October and until 
May, no animal should be permitted to set foot 
within it. No matter just what it is that kills or 
weakens the plants, the truth is so well proved that 
-it admits of no argument; so let us emphasize the 
rule never under any avoidable circumstance go 
