464 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
ers could be collected and diverted by ditches upon soil suited to 
alfalfa. Often in a draw, where moisture from the surrounding 
prairie is inclined to center, good encouragement for seeding to 
alfalfa is offered. 
The number of plants to the acre that can be maintained in the 
dry farming district has not been determined; but at Rocky Ford, 
Col., in 1908, an alfalfa nursery plant, without irrigation for 
eleven previous months, produced at the rate of two and three- 
fifths tons per acre the first cutting; and then made a second cut- 
ting equally as good, that was left for seed. The plat had been 
seeded in 1907 to Turkestan alfalfa, and thinned to single plants 
twenty inches apart each way. It received one irrigation and 
was thoroughly cultivated that year. The growth in 1908 was 
made on the moisture that was stored and conserved in the soil, 
but such phenomenal yields can hardly be expected without irri- 
gation. In the favored spots, before mentioned, alfalfa can cer- 
tainly be grown if once established and properly managed. 
The growing of alfalfa seed offers great opportunities to the 
farmer on dry lands, because the fact has been well demonstrated 
that alfalfa yields seed best when the plant makes a slow, dwarfed 
growth, when it really lacks for moisture, but has enough to set 
and fill the seed. Seed grown under dry conditions has more 
vigor and vitality than seed produced with an excess of moisture, 
and it is usually free from dodder and other noxious weeds, if the 
field has had any cultural care. There is a demand for dry land 
alfalfa seed that far exceeds the supply. 
In establishing alfalfa for seed production, under dry conditions, 
it is recommended to sow in rows eighteen or twenty inches apart, 
with two to three pounds of good seed per acre. A thin, uniform 
stand is absolutely necessary, even to thinning, as in beet culture; 
but the stand can usually be regulated by the amount of seed 
sown. It has been found that plants twenty inches apart will 
support each other and not lodge or lay on the ground, as in 
thicker or thinner stands. With a good stooling variety like the 
‘Turkestan, plants six to twelve inches apart in the row are thick 
enough. If all the seed would germinate, one pound per acre 
would be ample, but it is difficult to sow a small quantity uni- 
formly in the row, and for seed production it might pay to space 
and thin the plants. 
The row system is essential, as it permits intertillage to eradi- 
cate weeds, and to conserve the moisture, and also allows deep 
cultivation to absorb winter storms, affording an opportunity to 
furrow out the rows and to direct or divert any surface water that 
may or may not be needed. It is the only system that will allow 
the tillage that is so essential to all dry farming. 
