iro r 
A Talk About Alfalfa Breeding. 
Let the Farmers Do It. 
Part II. 
HE QUESTION OF BREEDING.—Right here 
somebody is thinking that Wing has put himself 
into a hole advocating pure nonsense; that if all of 
the Alfalfas cross-fertilize as he says they do, then 
there is no use of breeding at all. and no use even 
of trying to introduce a new breed or new blood into 
the business. Let us examine this point just a lit¬ 
tle. Many of you know that in live-stock breeding 
certain characteristics of certain breeds are so 
strongly fixed, as we might say. that the offspring 
will always show it. You know, for instance, that 
if you breed a Hereford hull to a cow of any other 
breed whatsoever, her calf will have a white face. 
This white face in the Hereford blood is what is 
called a dominant characteristic, and the same 
principle applies to plants. Now I think that not 
enough work has been done along the line of Al¬ 
falfa breeding so that any of us can tell today what 
characteristics in any particular species of Alfalfa 
are going to prove dominant and what are going to 
be recessive, which is simply the opposite to domin¬ 
ant. Fortunately, however, while there is not. as 
far as I know, a great deal of scientific informa¬ 
tion on this point as yet. we have had about 70 
years of actual experience with one variety, the 
Grimm, which has been growing here during all 
that time and growing with plenty of common Al¬ 
falfa within very easy reach. I think we can come 
nearer to deciding what can he done with other 
new varieties of Alfalfa by thinking a minute over 
the Grimm than we could in any other way. 
WHAT GRIMM IS.—Grimm Alfalfa is a hybrid 
variety to begin with. It was probably crossed in 
Norway or some other similar severe climate be¬ 
tween purple-flowered common but hardy Alfalfa 
find yellow-flowered Alfalfa, perhaps of one of the 
wild species. The result was a variety having great 
hardiness as its principal characteristic, and a no¬ 
ticeable. although to all practical purposes an un¬ 
important feature, a peculiar blossom, which com¬ 
bined the purple and yellow colors. Another pecu¬ 
liarity was its habit of concealing its crown at least 
an inch under ground, while other characteristics 
were a root that was more inclined to fork than is 
the common Alfalfa, and a crown which was in¬ 
clined to throw up more stalks to each plant than 
does the common. As a possible result of growing 
in a cold climate with a short Summer, it was early, 
started rather quickly in the Spring, and made its 
first cutting rather quickly. Now in spite of the 
fact that this variety has been in the United States 
lor about 70 years, has been freely crossed with the 
common Alfalfa all that time, it still retains every 
one of its original characteristics. At least if any¬ 
one has discovered a change I have failed to find it 
recorded anywhere. It seems to me that this being 
the case, each of the characteristics which I have 
named must be more or less dominant in this va¬ 
riety. If there have been any changes at all during 
ibis time they must have been minor ones, because 
no one that I know of has commented on them at 
fill. It is only fair to say, however, that the hardi¬ 
ness of this variety has, in my mind, been retained 
both as a result of its heredity and as a result of the 
conditions to which this variety has been subjected 
ever since it has been brought into the United States. 
CHARACTERISTIC HARDINESS. 
—It was brought here to contend with 
a very severe climate, that of Minneso¬ 
ta, and probably up to the past five 
years nine-tenths of it has been grow¬ 
ing right along in the most severe cli¬ 
mates of the United States. It was 
natural that this should be so, and 
I think it is a clearly demonstrated 
fact that by the law of the survival of 
the fittest our hardiest Alfalfas must 
come from the North. Consequently I 
do not think it is proven as yet that 
Grimm Alfalfa seed grown, say in 
Texas or Arizona, would not in the 
course of time lose a certain degree of 
its hardiness. This point is not at 
present remarkably important to us. Our Northwest 
will be able to produce for many years to come 
much more Alfalfa seed than is actually required 
of her. and we can unquestionably retain the hardi¬ 
ness of our hardy varieties by growing them in cli¬ 
mates that are severe. 
OTHER HARDY TYPES.—There are today four 
or five new varieties of Alfalfa that are claiming the 
attention of thinking farmers, the Baltic, Cossack, 
Cherno, Semipalatinsk, and Orenberg. All of these 
are rather new importations. All of them show 
some decided improvement over common Alfalfa. 
All of them are extremely hardy; will stand more 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
severe cold than is found in the United States, and 
besides they have many other desirable characteris¬ 
tics. I described most of these varieties in an ar¬ 
ticle in this paper last Fall. The Baltic I did not 
mention simply because it seems to he so much like 
the Grimm that it seemed unnecessary to comment 
on it or to distinguish between them. These new 
varieties are proving so attractive that I think all 
of us can well afford to pay some attention to them, 
as well as to the Grimm, which at present is assum¬ 
ing considerable importance throughout the entire 
community. 
COMPARISON OF VARIETIES.—In a plot which 
I am working on there are about 70 varieties or 
Plant of Semipalatinsk, one of the Siberian varieties 
introduced by Prof. N. E. Hansen. This is one-sixth 
the natural size. Fig. 378. (See page 1014.) 
strains of Alfalfa. Most of these are simply selected 
strains of common Alfalfa, but among them are the 
Baltic, Grimm, Cossack, Cherno, Semipalatinsk and 
Orenberg. The plants are as yet too young to draw 
conclusive data, but I am pleased as well as just a 
little bit surprised to find up to date that the Grimm 
is outyielding in forage the common Alfalfa, and 
that the Cossack and Cherno are up to this time de¬ 
cidedly outyielding the Grimm. The other plants 
are not yet sufficiently developed for me to comment 
on them. The Cossack and Cherno are fully as 
hardy as the Grimm. They are hybrids, as the 
Grimm is. Their blossoms range all the way from 
pure yellow to pure purple, with every gradation in 
between. They have about the same root system as 
the Grimm, but probably a good deal better crown 
than the Grimm has. Their crown is submerged at 
least an inch under ground, the same as the Grimm, 
find it is my opinion that their crowns are about a 
half larger than the Grimm. 
PERMANENT CHARACTERISTICS.—Now since 
the Grimm has not changed its crown as far as we 
know during the past 70 years, it seems reasonable 
to me to suppose that the Cossack and Cherno will 
not change theirs either, that this may be a domin¬ 
ant characteristic that may not be affected at all 
1007 
when they cross-fertilize, as they unquestionably 
will, with the common Alfalfa all around them. 
Whether their heavy yielding qualities will con¬ 
tinue after years of cross-fertilization or not, no 
one knows. It would seem, however, that if they 
retained their enormous crowns and their character¬ 
istic of sending up many stalks to each crown, then 
we might also count on the heavy yield per acre as 
being a permanent factor; also that the yield would 
he decidedly affected by a meadow’s thickening up 
year after year by these crowns, enlarging and 
spreading out. and that they are so hardy that there 
would be practically no winter-killing whatever, un¬ 
less we were trying to grow them on soil that was 
too wet or something of this nature. 
CLIMATIC REQUIREMENTS.—If the seed is 
grown in the Northwest, there is not the slightest 
question in my mind that the great hardiness char¬ 
acteristic of these plants can he easily maintained 
for centuries to come, and there is not much use of 
us farmers here where Alfalfa produces two to six 
pecks of seed per acre, the quality none the best on 
account of our frequent rainfall, trying to compete 
with the farmers in the Northwest who grow in¬ 
stead of two to six pecks, from two to seven bush¬ 
els of seed per acre. The Semipalatinsk is naturally 
a pure yellow variety, one that I think belongs 
rather west of the corn belt, since it was imported 
with the idea of becoming a pasture plant instead 
of a hay variety; therefore I have not commented 
very much on it. There are millions of acres in the 
semi-arid regions where a variety like this may pos¬ 
sibly become of tremendous importance. In the corn 
belt we are interested in hay varieties more than we 
are in pasture varieties. 
VARIATION IN BLOSSOMS.—An interesting 
thing, however, has just developed in my own plots 
The original stock of Semipalatinsk had, as stated, a 
yellow blossom. I now have plants growing from a 
crop of seed produced in the United States and these 
plants, in most cases, show hybridization with pur¬ 
ple-flowered varieties. This is by no means any¬ 
thing different from what we should expect and 
while it is a rather pleasant thing to go into a 
field and see a lot of pure yellow flowers, to know 
that this must lie the new variety which we had un¬ 
der observation, still we are not growing these 
plants for their blossoms and if the other desirable 
characteristics are maintained, then the color of the 
blossom is of decidedly small importance to us. 
ORENBERG ALFALFA.—I have already written 
at some length of the Orenberg, of its origin, of its 
wonderful crowns over two feet in diameter, of its 
producing over 500 stalks to a plant, the stalks fine, 
leafy clear to the ground, more useful than the com¬ 
mon Alfalfa on account of the fineness of the stems 
and the superabundance of leaves; finally of its 
underground root system, the roots spreading out 
in all directions with practically no tap-root what¬ 
ever, and of some of these roots running laterally at 
a depth of about eight inches, and from time to 
time sending up a new plant. This is also a yellow- 
flowered variety, and in my young plants it is be¬ 
ginning to show already its first hybridization. 
Some of the blossoms are still pure yellow, but most 
of them show contamination with the purple. Now 
we can only guess at what ones of its characteris¬ 
tics will remain permanent with this variety. I am 
hoping that its underground root system is so pro¬ 
nouncedly different from that of other Alfalfa that 
it will remain a dominant character¬ 
istic. I do not particularly care wheth¬ 
er its blossoms remain yellow or what 
color they take. I am hoping that it 
retains its leafy characteristics and 
its fine stems, and I feel reasonably 
sure that it will retain its enormous 
crowns just because the Grimm has 
done so. 
FARM POSSIBILITIES.—There is 
not much use of my filling up space 
with guesses of what is going to hap¬ 
pen with these new varieties, but I of¬ 
fer this article for your consideration, 
hoping that you will see the wisdom of 
taking these matters more into your 
own hands and not leaving them in¬ 
definitely for college professors to work out, and 
also because I think few of us have given the mat¬ 
ter of Alfalfa breeding any thought at all. The work 
to my mind is just along the line of plain ordinary 
farming, the testing of these new sorts in small 
plots at first and watching to see what does happen 
when they hybridize, as they unquestionably will, 
with the common Alfalfa which surrounds them. 
The sooner we test these out the sooner we shall 
know how important each of them is for our own 
particular neighborhood. Forget about the color of 
the blossom, but watch the hardiness, the root de¬ 
velopment, the yield and quality of the hay. If 
