8 
Buy Seed of Known Origin 
1 <|H *5 Keep This Catalog 1QQ7 
Use It. Save Money • 
warehouse 
l J ff Kt-nms.w»j, i* 
Tliis shows a small space in our Peoria warehouse where we have at this date (Jan. 5th) about 7800 
hags of seed, besides several carloads of other merchandise. Picture of this warehouse on page 32. 
ALFALFA 
A Crop Every Farmer Should Produce 
Where you have stock to feed it will pay you a better profit than any other crop you can grow. The 
alfalfa seed crop turned out a little larger than expected, although a very small crop of seed in some 
sections, while more has been produced in other sections than 
ever before. In Illinois, a large percentage of this is thin grained, 
shows a large percentage of hard seeds and rather low germina¬ 
tion. In Idaho, a large alfalfa producing State, where it often 
makes as much as 10 to 12 bushels per acre, there was not over 
20% of a crop. The writer was in Idaho, traveled more than 800 
miles in the Snake River Valley, where most of the alfalfa is pro¬ 
duced, and found the second crop being put up for hay. This crop, 
usually the heaviest seed crop, did not set. We have some very 
fine alfalfa which came out of North Dakota, South Dakota, Min¬ 
nesota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. On account of alfalfa 
being lower in proportion than red clover or sweet clover, there 
will be quite a lot of alfalfa used for crop rotations and mixtures. 
It has been found that alfalfa seeded with timothy will make 
much more hay and better hay than timothy alone. 
Huy Verified Origin Seed 
ALL UUK ALFALFA IS VERIFIED ORIGIN SEED. Every bag 
will come to you with a red, white and blue verified origin tag, 
showing the state in which the seed was produced. 
The alfalfa crop was very short in the Northwest this year but 
there was a very good crop in New Mexico, Western Texas, Ari¬ 
zona. and Southern California. 
As these states produced a lot of seed, none of which is adapted 
to our section, if you do not buy verified origin seed, no doubt you 
will get some of the seed which has to be marketed somewhere. 
DEMAND U. S. VERIFIED ORIGIN SEED. It costs but little more and some of the other seed may 
be worthless in your section. 
What Is the Best Variety for Me to Sow? 
This Is a question which we are asked many times a day during the season. This depends on where 
you are located, and how long you expect to leave the field stand. Some use alfalfa in crop rotation, 
in place of clover. 
If you do this and leave the field only two or three years, we would use Kansas seed. If you live 
north of Peoria, we would recommend the Hardy Northwestern for a short period. If you expect to 
leave the field stand for several years, we would recommend the Cossack or Grimm. 
Some figure if they leave the field a long time they will add nitrogen according to the length of 
time the field stands. This is a mistake. The nitrifying bacteria are like bees. After they store *a 
certain amount of nitrogen they take life easy and cease to store up a greater surplus. For this rea¬ 
son it does not pay to leave the fields stand for more than 3 or 4 years. 
As alfalfa is one of our specialties we have spent quite a lot of time in the study of this plant, not 
only at the University of Illinois, but University of Ohio, University of Iowa and the University of Wis¬ 
consin, where the United States Department of Agriculture has a plant specialist, Dr. Jones, who spends 
his entire time in the study of alfalfa and alfalfa diseases, principally wilt. From our study of alfalfa we 
find Cossack to be one of the very best you can sow. It is very winter hardy and not susceptible to alfalfa 
wilt which kills out fully 50% of all alfalfas. Cossack winter kills 5%, weight of first cutting 1.67 tons. Da¬ 
kota No. 12 winter kills 5%, weight of first cutting 1.60 tons. Grimm was third winter killing 10%, 
weight of first cutting 1.48 tons. Some of the common varieties showed as much as 70% winter killing 
and a yield of less than one-half ton per acre. One thing which surprised us was that of all these 
University trials Kansas compared favorably with common varieties and where short crop rotation or 
a pasture we recommend it for any territory in a latitude south of Peoria, Illinois. As to wilt resistance 
Cossack was outstanding against this disease, much more so than Grimm or any other variety with the 
exception of Turkestan which is the most resistant b\it not adapted to this country on account of the 
low yields. 
From the chart at the right you can 
see the value of alfalfa. 
