CHAPTER IX. 



Pasttiring and Soifing 



PASTURING NOT AliWAYS ECONOMY. 



Its perennial nature and the reports o£ its wonderfully 

 productive and nutritive qualities might naturally lead 

 the farmer, without better acquaintance, to suppose that 

 with alfalfa he has a perpetual pasture; that he will open 

 the gate to his Hve stock in the spring, send for the butcher 

 or buyer in October, and then winter in luxurious leisure. 

 But he finds that the easiest is not always the most profit- 

 able way. Pasturing with any stock is an expensive and 

 extravagant method of gathering a valuable crop from 

 high-priced land. Where land is cheap and pasture is 

 wild, stock are not expensive help in gathering a cheap 

 crop ; but it is easily demonstrated that when land values 

 are high and a crop value is in a like altitude, man with 

 machinery can do the harvesting more economically than 

 can a cow, a steer or even a sheep. 



AliFAIiFA A TENDER PI/ANT. 



In some respects alfalfa does not seem to be a natural 

 pasture plant. The stems are delicate, it will not thrive in 

 a hard, trampled soil, and the crowns when broken off will 

 not revive; if some of the plants bloom and drop their 

 flowers early in the season, they lose vigor and many of 

 them die. These peculiarities would at least indicate that 



