Bist | 91 
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A few extracts from variousagricul{ural papers and other publications 
are here inserted. 
Southern Live Stock Journal: 
The value of alfalfa in California is inestimable. The plant is eminently adapted 
to the soil and climate of that State. It is wonderfully productive. It is grown with 
- success in Colorado and some of the Territories, and now and then an isolated report 
coines up from the great State of Texas that it is fulfilling the highest hopes of those 
who have given it their attention. Here and there from the Carolinas, Georgia, 
Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana come favorable reports, but these in- 
stances are few and far between. The fact is, alfalfa has never yet bad a fair trial 
in Southern agriculture. Our people, as a people, have never appreciated its value 
as a worthy addition to southern grasses and forage plants. 
The failures that have been made with this plant in the South are doubtless due to 
the fact that (1) the weeds are allowed to choke it out the first year, or the stock to 
graze it too closely and bite off the crowns of the plants before the roots were firmly 
established; (2) the land was not rich enough—it requires very rich land; (3) that 
the land was not suitable to its growth, or that it held too much water and ought to 
have been underdrained. 
Tulare County (California) Register: 
‘Alfalfa is the foundation of prosperity in Tulare County. It begins to yield the 
very year it is sown, and iucreases its yield many years afterward. It will grow 
where nothing else will, and sends its roots deep down into the moist strata which 
underlie the top soil all over the country. Alfalfa not only furnishes food for horses, 
cattle, and sheep, but hogs and poultry thrive upon it as upon nothing else until fat- 
tening time comes, when a little Egyptian or Indian corn must be fed to make the 
flesh solid. In Tulare, alfalfa yields from 6 to 10 tons of hay per acre each sum- 
mer, besides supplying good pasturage the rest of the season; when it goes to seed 
it often yields a return of $40 to $60 per acre in seed alone, besides yielding nearly as 
valuable a hay crop as when not permitted to go to seed. Upon alfalfa and stock, 
Tulare is building a great and assured prosperity. 
George Tyng, in Florida Dispatch: 
Sow in any month when the ground 1s moist and at least four to six weeks before 
heavy frost or before the season of heat and drought. Less seed will be required if 
it is soaked before sowing. Put the seed into any convenient vessel and cover with 
water, not boiling but too hot to be comfortable to the hand, and keep in a warm 
place for eighteen to twenty-four hours, until the seeds swell enough to partially 
rupture their dark hulls. When the seeds are ready for sowing drain off all the 
water through a sieve or bag and dry the seeds with cotton-seed meal, land plaster, 
or other material, increasing the bulk to a bushel and a half or two bushels for every 
20 pounds. Ifthe ground be dry, cultivate just before sowing and sow in the after- 
noon. Cover as soon as possible, and guard against covering too deeply. The best 
convenient thing for this purpose is a light drag made of the bushy branches of 
trees. 
Prof. E. W. Hilgard, in the Report of the Department of Agriculture 
for 1878, page 490, says: 
Undoubtedly the most valuable result of the search after forage crops adapted to 
the California climate is the introduction of the culture of alfalfa, this being the 
name commonly applied to the variety of Lucerne that was introduced into Cali- 
fornia from Chili early in her history, differing from the European plants merely in 
that it has a tendency to taller growth and deeper roots. The latter habit, doubt- 
less acquired in the dry climate of Chili, is of course especially valuable in Cali- 
fornia, as it enables the plant to stand a drought so protracted as to kill out even 
“ae 
