Vol. LXY. No. 2938. 
NEW YORK. MAY 19, 1906. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
ALFALFA FOR EASTERN FARMERS. 
A CROP WELL WORTH STRIVING FOR. 
How To Work for It. 
Part II. 
SUITABLE SOIL.—Land to grow Alfalfa must be 
well drained, both on the surface and below it. If it 
is not, the crop is certain to fail. When water covers 
it more than 48 hours the plants usually die in a short 
time. For this reason it is necessary on eastern farms 
to have all low spots and pockets on the surface of the 
field leveled off or filled up or ditched, so that water 
will not stand in them long enough to kill the plants. 
Low spots where snow melts and forms an ice sheet 
arc one of the worst evils to contend with, as a long 
covering of ice that partially melts warm days brings 
death to Alfalfa. 
There are some 
tracts of land 
otherwise suited 
to it on which 
this crop cannot 
be raised because 
they are subject 
to overflow from 
streams, and 
water stands on 
them three or 
four days each 
season, killing the 
plant. Alfalfa 
will not grow 
long in wet soil. 
The roots rot off. 
It grows best 
where water in 
wells stands 12 to 
50 feet below the 
surface of the 
ground. There 
are places where 
Alfalfa has yield¬ 
ed a good crop 
for years where 
the waiter in the 
wells comes as 
close as five feet 
to the surface, 
but in these lo¬ 
calities the sub¬ 
soil is sand and 
gravel and the 
drainage is good. 
There are hun¬ 
dreds of farms on 
which Alfalfa has 
grown well for 
years where the 
water in wells is 125 to 200 feet below the 
surface soil. Land naturally wet but well drained 
with tile is yielding good crops of it in Ohio and other 
eastern States. Any land well drained on the surface 
and below ii, and not subject to overflow nor to sheet 
ice, will grow good crops when properly treated, unless 
rock_ comes so close to the surface that there is not 
sufficient soil for the roots. Alfalfa needs a depth of 
at least 10 to 12 feet of soil above a rock formation, 
and can use more to advantage. It is easiest to grow 
Alfalfa on a rich loam that has a porous subsoil. Hun¬ 
dreds of acres are giving good yields in Wisconsin and 
northern Illinois where black loam three to five feet 
is underlaid with gravel. It is hard to get it started 
on a heavy surface soil, especially where the subsoil is 
a stiff clay, but once well established on such soil the 
yield is larger and a good stand is maintained longer 
than on lighter soils. Alfalfa is a “lime plant,” and 
piust be well supplied with this material. The more 
there is in the soil the greater vigor the plants show 
each succeeding year after seeding. It is also a rank 
consumer of potash, and mature plants can extract 
what they need from a clay subsoil where they can 
bore deep down into it. This crop will yield well on 
a sandy soil for five or six years after a stand is se¬ 
cured, and 10 to 20 years or more on a heavy soil after 
becoming well started. It weakens after a few years 
of good growth on sandy soils apparently from a lack 
of available lime and potash in the subsoil, and is in¬ 
jured on such soils by drought. The writer traced 
Alfalfa roots to a depth of 12 to 15 feet in hardpan 
subsoil, so hard that the digging had to be done with 
a pick and a sharpened bar. A spade would make no 
impression on this subsoil. The Alfalfa on this field 
had been yielding good crops for eight years. Alfalfa 
A BUNCH OF WHITE-FACED BEEF-MAKERS. Fig. 168. 
will do well on level land if the drainage is all right, 
but it is better to make the first trial on rolling or 
sloping ground, as the damage from standing surface 
water can be easier avoided. It will adapt itself to 
almost any soil where the drainage is right. 
THE SEED.—Before sowing. Alfalfa seed should 
be tested, and not used if it shows less than 90 per 
cent germination, and 95 to 100 per cent will grow of 
the best grades. Considerable seed has been put on 
the market the last few years of which from 50 to 75 
per cent only would germinate. Such seed is not safe 
to use, as there is not only a loss from the large pro¬ 
portion of dead seeds, but those that do germinate 
have had their vitality seriously injured, and cannot 
be expected to produce strong plants. The seed should 
also be examined to see that it is free from weeds and 
other foreign seeds. Where the farmer is not well 
enough acquainted with Alfalfa to do this he should 
ask his experiment station to do it for him. The seed 
should be procured from a locality where the condi¬ 
tions arc as near as possible like those on the farm 
where the seed is to be sown, and in every case the 
seed should be grown under as severe conditions of 
heat and cold as the crop from it will have to stand. 
This is as important as it is with corn, and a large 
share of the failures in growing Alfalfa are caused by 
sowing seed not suited to the soil and climate in which 
it is to be grown. A single instance will show what 
a difference the locality in which the seed is grown 
makes. In eastern Kansas is a section of country with 
probably as difficult a soil as Alfalfa has ever been 
tried on. The surface soil is rich but waxy, and the 
subsoil is tough clay and hardpan. The rainfall is 
nearly as heavy as it is in the Eastern States. For 
12 or 15 years the farmers in this section tried to grow 
Alfalfa and 
failed. They used 
the p lumpes t 
highest germinat¬ 
ing seed on the 
market. This 
seed was grown 
in southwestern 
Kansas on rich 
sandy loam on the 
Arkansas River 
bottom, where 
the soil and cli¬ 
mate are warm, 
the land irrigat¬ 
ed when neces¬ 
sary, and every 
condition is fa¬ 
vorable for the 
easiest growth of 
the plant. This 
seed was sown 
year after year 
on the waxy 
tough soil in 
eastern Kansas, 
and good stands 
secured the first 
season, but the 
plants died out 
fast, and the 
crops were fail¬ 
ures. It finally 
became c onsid- 
ered that Alfalfa 
was not adapted 
to that locality. 
One year a far¬ 
mer decided to 
give it another 
trial. By mistake 
his seedsman 
shipped him seed that had been grown in a location 
in northwestern Kansas, where the climate is more 
severe, the land cannot be irrigated and the soil 
is tough, conditions that have developed a hardy 
strain of Alfalfa, as such a kind only can survive. This 
seed was sown and good yields secured for several 
years, and Alfalfa is now a general crop in that neigh¬ 
borhood, hardy seed being used. 
VARIATIONS IN STOCK.—Alfalfa seed from Ne¬ 
braska and northwestern Kansas has been generally suc¬ 
cessful through Iowa and Illinois, and is probably 
adapted to Ohio and southern Pennsylvania. Utah seed 
produces good crops when sown in Minnesota, the ex¬ 
tremes of cold and heat in Utah having developed a 
strain of Alfalfa that does well in cold climates. The 
writer knows of no tests that have been made, but he 
would use Utah-grown seed for New York, northern 
New Jersey and northern Pennsylvania, and seed from 
Wyoming or from Montana for New England, On the 
