1908. 
THE RURAL NEDW-YORKER 
21 
AN ALFALFA TALK. 
F. I>. Coburn had come clear from Kan¬ 
sas to talk at N. Y. State Breeders’ meeting 
on the uses and culture of Alfalfa. lie is the 
man who would rather be secretary of the 
Kansas Department of Agriculture than 
T'nited States Senator or Governor of his 
own State. To the progressive, well-informed 
eastern farmer he did not tell anything very 
new or very startling. But Alfalfa is such 
a jewel among farm crops that it deserves 
the brightest setting, and its merits could not 
well be set forth better than was done by so 
strong a personality as Secretary Coburn. 
Tie maintains that Alfalfa will grow any¬ 
where that almost any other crop will, and 
that, of course, includes New York State. 
Any fairly good land here fairly fertilized 
and clean, if properly drained, will raise 
Alfalfa, not perhaps from the first attempt, 
or in the first year. There are many things 
besides Alfalfa which you don’t succeed with 
at first. While one crop of clover hay is 
about the regular thing, Alfalfa, on the same 
kind of soil produces three, and sometimes 
four and five cuttings of better feed than 
olover hay ever was. The Wisconsin Ex¬ 
periment Station claims to have demon¬ 
strated that an acre of Alfalfa will produce 
three times the protein an acre of clover 
will, and nine times as much as an acre of 
Timothy, if you can raise Alfalfa you can¬ 
not afford to raise Timothy. But Alfalfa 
is not intended for a pasture crop. Ani¬ 
mals that chew the cud—cattle, sheep, etc. 
—will almost invariably bloat and die, if 
they do not have prompt attention, when 
grazed on rank Alfalfa. Horses, hogs and 
oilier animals not chewing the cud can 
graze on it with impunity. Usually Alfalfa 
is too valuable for pasture. It is worth 
more cut and fed green, or cured as hay. 
When fed slightly wilted it will not cause 
nny animal to bloat. Aside from its value 
as a forage crop it has almost equal value 
as a renovator and fertilizer of the soil. 
A farmer should have part of his farm in 
Alfalfa while raising other crops on the 
remainder, and after a field has been in Al¬ 
falfa for four or five years he should plow 
it up and plant these other crops, sowing 
another field in Alfalfa. 
Alfalfa roots go down where no other 
plant roots go, and reaching the mineral 
elements of the lower subsoils, bring them 
to the surface and convert them into mer¬ 
chantable commodities. In this respect noth¬ 
ing else in the world will equal Alfalfa. 
Alfalfa is good for everything in the list 
of farm animals. It is equally good for 
chickens as it is for Percherons or Poland 
Chinas, cows, carriage horses, or any other 
farm stock. Everything likes it. and eats 
it and thrives on it. The experiment sta¬ 
tions show that the leaves of Alfalfa are 
about equal in feeding value to bran. With 
bran worth .$20 a ton, under certain condi¬ 
tion Alfalfa was found to be worth $23. 
But raising Alfalfa means work. The lazy 
man should not undertake to grow it. The 
land should be in the best tilth, but well 
firmed. If not in the best shape this year, 
wait another year. Have the land clean 
and in good tilth, as nearly like an onion 
bed as you can. Alfalfa while young is a 
delicate plant and not to be abused. Keen 
horses and hogs off the field until the Al¬ 
falfa is well established. 
One difficulty is with the seed. There is 
much adulterated seed on the market and 
much that will not germinate. Where to 
secure good seed is the question. Even Mr. 
Coburn could not offer a solution of this 
problem except as to say that each would-be 
purchaser should send a sample to his near¬ 
est experiment station for examination. 
Buy it if the station reports it O. K„ other¬ 
wise reject it. Where bad seed is sown the 
actual result is a weak, poor stand of Al¬ 
falfa, and a dense growth of weeds. The 
land has to be plowed up and re-seeded, the 
use of the land for a year is lost, as it has 
become foul with weeds, many of which will 
be newly introduced and noxious in char¬ 
acter. There is but one kind of Alfalfa. 
Buy good Alfalfa seed : that is all the kind 
worth growing. In some soils Alfalfa will 
not thrive on acount of the lack of proper 
bacteria. But any soil where Sweet clover 
grows is already properly inoculated for Al¬ 
falfa growing, and perhaps you may be able 
to get soil from the roadsides or wherever 
you find Sweet clover or soil from a neigh¬ 
boring Alfalfa field, and sow it on your 
Alfalfa ground, 100 to 500 pounds per acre, 
and thoroughly harrow it in. The great 
feature of Alfalfa as a land renovator is its 
wonderful capacity of gathering nitrogen 
from the air and storing it in nodules on its 
roots for the use of sucessive crops. There 
is no way of collecting nitrogen from the 
atmosphere equal to growing Alfalfa. 
Alfalfa may be hard to cure for hay in a 
sub-humid climate as we have here. But 
by watching the weather and taking proper 
care of the crop we can do it. It should be 
cured in cocks. We must save as much as 
possible of the leaves. There is a tremen¬ 
dous waste in stacking hay in the field. 
It is better to put Alfalfa in the barn or 
under a shed with something underneath 
that admits of ventilation from below. Do 
not store it at too great a depth at first, 
say not over four feet. Tf deener you need 
ventilation. Get some barrels and stand 
them on the floor or on the ground before 
you begin. Put the hay around them and 
as you build up pidl the barrels up. thus 
leaving vacant spaces through which the 
air can circulate and the moisture escape. 
Alfalfa may be safelv stored quite green. 
Even when it turns b'ack and appears to be 
mouldy and spoiled stock will eat it greedily 
and thrive on it. But better aim to have 
it bright and green. Another thing we are 
entitled to count on is the excellence and 
value of Alfalfa manure. It gives quan¬ 
tity, too. Any man who has two acres of 
land and a cow ought to have part of that 
land in Alfalfa, and he will be astonished 
by what it will do for him. t. g. 
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