THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 223 



ALFALFA— THE SEED BED AND SEEDING. 



By 



H. D. Hughes, Iowa State College. 



Alfalfa can be grown successfully on nearly all Iowa soils, 

 providing that proper methods are followed. The fact that a 

 few men have not succeeded with the crop in their first attempt 

 should not discourage any, as the percent of failures is probably 

 not much greater than the percent of failures in securing a 

 stand of crops with which we are thoroughly familiar, such as 

 red clover, timothy, etc. Inquiries recently made by the Iowa 

 State College indicate that alfalfa is producing large yields of 

 hay of the finest quality on almost every soil in the state. 



Alfalfa has been successfully grown on the College farm 

 and on the Experiment Station fields for a number of years. 

 Two fields which are still in alfalfa this season may be mentioned 

 as indicative of what may reasonably be expected. 



On the College dairy farm a field of yy 2 acres was seeded 

 in August, 1908. In 1909 and again in 19 10 three cuttings 

 were made with a total yield of $y 2 tons per acre each year. In 

 1910 the field also gave considerable pasturage. This season 

 the first crop was cut on June 12th with an average yield of 2% 

 tons per acre for the whole piece. 



A plot on the farm crops experimental fields, seeded Aug- 

 ust 18, 1908, gave three cuttings with 5.25 tons per acre in 1909, 

 three cuttings with 5.15 tons per acre in 19 10, and the first cut- 

 ting this year gave 2.25 tons per acre, of field cured hay. 



During the past season a number of farmers have been con- 

 ducting co-operative experiments with the Iowa experiment 

 station in order to determine what methods should be employed 

 in order to secure the best results. These men are located in 

 almost every section of the state, and dealt with all sorts of soil 



