Farm Notes. ii 
ensilage from .whole alfalfa is a much harder proposition.. 
It requires that the alfalfa be quite green; that the silo be 
both tight and deep; that the alfalfa be thrown into the silo 
in small forkfuls and carefully tramped and that it be 
weighted by four to six feet of some heavy, tight packing 
material like cut corn fodder. If the alfala is put up in the 
middle of summer in clear, bright weather, it must be raked 
and loaded as fast as cut. One lot we tried was too dry for 
ensilage two hours after it was cut. 
D —THREE METHODS OF HANDLING ALFALFA. 
The preceding pages have given the losses that may be 
expected from handling alfalfa in the stack, in the barn 
and in the form of ensilage. Combining the losses in¬ 
curing and gathering to those found in the stack and the 
barn, we can say that under the best of ordinary conditions,, 
for every ioo pounds of feeding value as it exists in the 
green alfalfa at the time it is cut by the mower, 77 pounds 
will be saved if the hay is well cured and put in a stack 
under good conditions; 86 pounds will be saved if put in the 
barn, and 90 pounds can be expected if made into first-class 
ensilage. The cost of the ensilage is so much more than 
handling the alfalfa as hay that as between the silo and the 
barn there can be no question unless it is shown that the 
dry matter of the alfalfa ensilage has a higher feeding 
value, pound for pound, than that of the dry hay. In the 
comparison of the ensilage and the stacked hay, the princi¬ 
pal advantage of the ensilage must lie in the fact that the 
alfalfa can be put in the silo, even under bad conditions of 
weather at time of cutting, and that once siloed it is safe 
from the worst weather. 
E —TOP-DRESSING ALFALFA. 
A field which had been in alfalfa three years was 
divided into five equal plots. The first, third and fifth were 
left as checks. The second plot was fertilized at the rate of 
sixty loads to the acre of fine, well rotted sheep manure.. 
The fourth plot received half as heavy a top-dressing. The 
manure was spread on in the winter and after the alfalfa 
started in the spring, it was run over with a smoothing 
harrow to break up the manure fine and allow the alfalfa, 
shoots a good chance to grow. 
When the field was ready for the first cutting the eye- 
