Vol. LXX. No. 4081 . 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 14, 1911. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
THE STORY OF ALFALFA. 
How to Get it Going. 
1 have a piece of land, about four acres, I wish to 
into Alfalfa. The land is level and 
of limestone nature. Tell me how 1 
must go about it to get a good stand, 
when to sow, and where I can get 
the seed. m. 
West Virginia. 
The opinion seems to be prev¬ 
alent that Alfalfa cannot be suc¬ 
cessfully grown in the Eastern 
part of the United States. Our 
own experience, however, on the 
cold, heavy, non-limestone clays 
of Northeastern Ohio has led us 
to believe it can be made a prof¬ 
itable crop almost anywhere. Cer¬ 
tain soil conditions are absolutely 
essential, but where these are not 
naturally found they may all be 
provided. These conditions are, 
first, a dry soil; second, a sweet 
soil; third, a soil filled with cer¬ 
tain bacteria which live and work 
with the Alfalfa plant; fourth, a 
clean soil, and a fertile soil. 
DRAINAGE.—Alfalfa is pre¬ 
eminently a dry soil plant. By 
nature it is deep-rooted, and a 
soil that holds water, so that for 
even a short time after heavy 
rains it stands. full of water, is 
unfriendly. Unfriendly is too 
mild a word to use in that con¬ 
nection. It is death. For Alfalfa 
roots, fitted by nature for a deep, 
dry soil, simply cannot grow in a 
water-logged soil. A soil that 
heaves by freezing is not suited 
to Alfalfa, for it cannot do other¬ 
wise than pull up or break off 
the long tap roots of the Alfalfa 
plant. Not to mention the ordi¬ 
nary benefits which come from 
drainage, I think we see the ab¬ 
solute necessity of it for Alfalfa, 
so that unless the soil is naturally 
well drained, thorough and deep 
artificial drainage is the first 
preparation. Better give it up 
than to sow on wet, soggy land. 
LIME FOR ALFALFA.—It is 
a significant fact that the natural 
Alfalfa soils the world over are 
the strongest lime soils. Another 
fact well established and equally 
significant is that the attempts to 
grow it on non-calcareous soils 
without liming, have almost in¬ 
variably resulted in failure. I re¬ 
cently met a man from the West¬ 
ern Ohio oil regions, who gave 
me this remarkable testimony as 
to the value of lime for Alfalfa. 
He wished to seed to Alfalfa a 
field of very rich black loam, in 
the center of which a dry hole 
had been put down for oil the 
year previous. The white sand 
drillings of the limestone rock 
beneath were in marked contrast 
with the black soil of the rest of 
the field. He said he gave the soil special preparation, 
and fully expected to get Alfalfa on this fertile field, 
except around the well. He did not think it could 
possibly grow in that raw limestone sand. To his 
very great surprise, the Alfalfa grew strong and rank 
in the limestone drillings around the old well, but 
jet was a total failure on the rest of the field. On our 
BEGINNING EARLY AT THEIR JOB. Fig. 11. 
GENERAL PURPOSE u - MILK; BEEF AND SADDLE. Fig. 12 
own .soil Alfalfa was a failure until we limed thor¬ 
oughly. Since then it has grown luxuriantly. It re¬ 
quired two tons of caustic lime per acre to sweeten 
our soils sufficiently to enable it to grow Alfalfa. 
INOCULATION.—The next necessity is inocula¬ 
tion. Many still laugh at the idea of inoculation, but, 
however foolish it may seem to those who have not 
studied the question, it has 
been proven beyond doubt that 
a certain bacterium must be 
present in the soil to live with 
and work with (supply nitro¬ 
gen to) the plant before Al¬ 
falfa can make a profitable 
growth. Of course if this par¬ 
ticular form of bacteria is 
present in the soil, inoculation 
is not necessary. But in re¬ 
gions where this crop has never 
been grown, the chances are 
that it is not present and 
must be introduced. In our 
own work we did not succeed 
until we procured soil from an 
old Alfalfa field and applied it 
to our field. In speaking of 
inoculation it might be well to 
state that strong sunlight will 
kill bacteria, and if the inocu¬ 
lating substance is spread over 
the surface of the field on a 
sunshiny day, and not at once 
worked into the soil, the bac¬ 
teria may be killed, and no 
inoculation effected. It is a 
good plan to drill the inocu¬ 
lating material into the soil 
with the grain drill, thus put¬ 
ting it down into the moist soil 
where it will come most com¬ 
pletely in contact with the 
Alfalfa roots. 
A CLEAN SOIL.—The 
next necessity is to rid the 
soil of weeds. While it is 
true that on properly prepared 
soil, Alfalfa grows very fast, 
yet we must remember that it 
is not native here—not at 
home. We are taking it out 
of its chosen environments 
and asking it to grow under 
somewhat unnatural condi¬ 
tions, and it need not be sur¬ 
prising if it is unable to do 
battle with the weeds, which 
are at home in their chosen 
environment. Many a promis¬ 
ing stand of Alfalfa has grown 
discouraged and given up be¬ 
cause it could not compete 
with the native weeds. It is 
therefore only giving the' crop 
a fair chance when we thor¬ 
oughly clean the ground of 
weeds before sowing. 
FERTILITY.—The next re¬ 
quirement is a fertile soil. 
From our own experience we 
are led to believe that if the 
above requirements are met, 
Alfalfa is no more exacting as 
to plant food than other 
crops. But it is a crop of 
great value, and one so ex¬ 
pensive to start, that having 
gone to the expense of meeting the necessary re¬ 
quirements, it is wise to provide the plant food nec¬ 
essary for a luxuriant growth. If the field to be 
