ALipALipA 
WILLIAM P. HEADDEN, A. M., Ph. D. 
No one can feel the incompleteness of the work pre¬ 
sented in this bulletin more keenly than the writer, or re¬ 
gret it more than he does. The original purpose was to 
make a somewhat extended investigation of the effects of 
alfalfa growing upon different soils, particularly upon such 
as had been sown to wheat for a number of successive 
years until the yield had fallen to an unremunerative point. 
The results presented are confessedly those of work pre¬ 
liminary to the study proper, but we deem them of sufficient 
interest to justify their issuance in this bulletin, as they in¬ 
clude the composition of the plant at different stages of de¬ 
velopment for each of the three cuttings—the usual num¬ 
ber in this locality—together with the amount and compo¬ 
sition of the ash of the whole plant above ground at differ¬ 
ent degrees of maturity, and also of the separate parts of the 
plant from the roots to the seed inclusive. 
In two instances the soils have been analyzed, and in 
one the ground water also. This is the approachment made 
to the original object of the bulletin. 
DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY. 
The history of this plant has been outlined in previous 
bulletins published by this and other stations. The 
following is taken mainly from Miller’s Gardener's Diction¬ 
ary^ I he root of the cultivated Medick, or Lucern, is per¬ 
ennial, with annual stalks one and one-half to two feet and 
even almost three feet in height in good ground. The com¬ 
mon colpr of the flower is a fine violet purple, but pale blue 
and variegated flowers are mentioned as arising accident¬ 
ally from seeds. Villars affirms that the flowers are white— 
seldom greenish. Its native place is variously given, it be- 
