American Agriculturist, June 2,1923 
471 
Alfalfa—The Comer 
Why Do Not More Farmers Grow It ? 
N ever had i this 
question so forcibly 
impressed upon me as I had it a few 
years ago. I found myself with a sur¬ 
plus of alfalfa hay, and as soon as the 
fact became known, my farm at once 
became the Mecca for an army of seek¬ 
ers for the best hay and feed grown 
upon the American farm. And they 
did not come from the city alone, the 
majority came from the farms nearby 
and as far as 10 miles away. My 
supply was exhausted before one-tenth 
of the seekers were satisfied, and those 
who were satisfied left behind a good 
price for the succulent feed they took 
away with them. 
And yet there was not a single one 
of those farmers who came to my farm 
for alfalfa hay, who could not have 
grown alfalfa upon their own farms. 
A few years ago my son and I went 
up into Wisconsin to purchase some 
Guernsey milk 
cows to coin our 
alfalfa hay into 
gold dollars. We 
went to a district 
where the dairy 
business was pre¬ 
eminent above 
every other 
branch of the 
business of farm¬ 
ing, and where 
every farmer was 
keeping from 10 
to 160 cows. Of 
course, wwe in¬ 
quired about 
feeds for cows, 
and to our de¬ 
light, alfalfa in 
every instance 
was placed at 
the head of feeds. 
And yet, in our 
trip over a large 
portion of the 
State we did not 
see 50 acres of 
alfalfa. 
The last dairy¬ 
man we visited 
had a herd of 150 
cows, housed in a 
barn equipped 
with every con¬ 
venience neces¬ 
sary for his busi¬ 
ness. He had a 
splendid farm 
and I saw that it 
would grow _ 
alfalfa. I asked — 
him about feeds 
for cows and he replied as follows: 
“Smith, for dairy feeds, alfalfa has 
every feed backed deaf off the map.” 
“Do you grow it?” I asked. 
With a smile he answered; “Yes, but 
only in a small way. I buy all I need.” 
I again asked; “Can you grow it 
upon your farm?” 
Knowing that I had written a book 
upon alfalfa, he looked at me as though 
he was wondering why I should ask 
such a question, that if I knew the 
business of alfalfa growing I ought to 
be able to tell whether his farm would 
grow alfalfa without asking him. But 
he answered the question and I have 
not yet been able to figure out why he 
did not grow all he needed instead of 
paying from $30 to $40 per ton F. O. 
B. shipping station as he was then* 
paying for alfalfa hay. This was his 
answer. 
“Yes, I sure can grow it. Have 
grown as high as seven tons to the acre 
in one season from three cuttings.” 
Of course, I could not help asking 
him the question: “Well, why don’t 
you grow all you need when your land 
is so generous in its production, instead 
of paying the fancy prices you are 
now paying for it?” 
He didn’t make a satisfactory ans¬ 
wer to the question. And here was a 
farmer that needed a lot of alfalfa hay, 
he had ideal land and plenty of it upon 
which to grow it, he had a lot of 
manure to stimulate its growth, and at 
the time we were talking I could hear 
the noise of a large limestone crusher, 
not a mile away, that was crushing 
into agricultural lime some of the best 
limestone for agricultural purposes 
found in any State. 
By W. C. SMITH 
500,000 Acres By 1934 
T he greatest and most far-reaching 
revolutions are those that come so 
gradually and so silently that little 
attention is paid to them. 
In 1900, there were only 5,582 
acres of alfalfa in New York State; 
in 1910, this acreage had multiplied 
better than six times to 35,343 acres; 
and in 1920, the acreage had increased 
to 119,783. 
Great progress has been made in de¬ 
veloping northern grown seed, and in 
finding varieties with a spreading root 
system which will withstand our north¬ 
ern winters. With this progress it is 
safe to say that New York State alone 
will undoubtedly have in another ten 
years better than 500,000 acres of 
alfalfa. 
The coming of this legume will mean 
much to farmers. When once es¬ 
tablished, with hardy seed and with 
winter resisting qualities, a field of 
alfalfa is good for ten years or more, 
with at least three crops a year. Com¬ 
pare this with what can be accomplished 
with clover and timothy; then remem¬ 
ber that there is nothing the farmer 
can grow that can approach alfalfa in 
feeding qualities, and add the fact 
that every year alfalfa is in the ground 
the soil improves, and you will see 
why a large acreage of alfalfa in every 
community will so greatly add to farm 
prosperity.—The Editors. 
A breeder of Poland 
China hogs once came 
to my farm for a load of the third 
cutting of alfalfa for his brood sows, 
and said, as I had been saying, preach¬ 
ing and practicing for years, that it 
was the finest feed for brood sows 
carrying their pigs that could be fed 
them. 
I knew that he had as good alfalfa 
land as I had, so I asked him why he 
didn’t grow it, especially when he was 
in the hog breeding business and knew 
that alfalfa was the best feed he could 
feed them. His answer perhaps, is the 
most satisfactory answer that can be 
given to the question propounded by 
the title of this article. It was: “Pure 
laziness, I suppose.” 
I recently took on the management 
of a four hundred acre farm that for 
years had trouble in even producing 
enough hay for the tenant, which of 
course made a 
■ large portion of 
the farm un¬ 
profitable for the 
landlord. A large 
tract each year 
was set apart for 
the growing of 
timothy, which 
didn’t produce a 
ton to the acre, 
yet the same 
land had pro¬ 
duced good crops 
of corn, wheat 
and oats. The 
timothy had been 
exhausting the 
fertility of the 
land. So I said 
no more timothy 
would be grown 
upon that farm, 
at least while I 
was managing it. 
When I said 
alfalfa would be 
grown upon it a 
great howl went 
up from those 
heard about it, 
and it was said 
that it couldn’t 
be done, that it 
had "been tried 
out with failure 
after failure. I 
said that we 
would try again, 
for if we suc¬ 
ceeded 10 acres 
—— —■ would produce 
more hay than 
40 acres had been doing, and it would 
be a lot better hay, too. 
I picked out where the test should 
be made and ten acres were sown to 
alfalfa in August, 1921. Last summer 
the ten acres produced three full crops 
of fine alfalfa hay, and the croakers 
were put to route. Alfalfa will be one 
of the best crops grown upon that 
farm, while I am in control of it at 
least. 
It will not do to say that our farms 
will not grow alfalfa, for most of them 
will, and there is hardly a State in 
which it will not grow. If then its 
growing means mofe and better feed 
for our live stock, and more money for 
the farmer who grows it, why isn’t 
more of it grown? 
LIVE STOCK SALES DATES 
June 2—Fifth Annual Sale, Bradford 
County Milking Shorthorn 
Breeders’ Association, Troy, 
Pa. 
June 5—Pinery Farms, Annual Hol¬ 
stein Sale, Mentor, Ohio. 
5—Crawford County Milking 
Shorthorn Sale, Westwood, 
Pa. 
5—Crawford County Milking 
Shorthorn Breeders, Westford, 
Fa., C. G. Wagner, Manager. 
5—Madison County Shorthorn 
Breeders, London Ohio. 
June 7-8—National Cooperative Hol¬ 
stein Sale, Cleveland, Ohio. 
June 8—Plain Hill Farms Annual Hol¬ 
stein Sale, Norwich, Conn. 
June 26—Estate 6f R. Conroy Vance, 
Jerseys, Fredericksburg, Va. 
June 
June 
June 
15,000 lbs* perYear * ♦ ♦ 
is the amount of milk any good grade 
Holstein ought to produce if properly fed. 
7,470 lbs. per year was the average pro¬ 
duced by a dozen or so good grade Holsteins 
on alfalfa hay and corn silage alone. 
It was an interesting experiment. But 
can the man who milks cows for a living 
afford to follow this sort of practise? Is it 
* the sort of practise that buys his shoes and 
lifts his mortgage and sends his son to college? 
Look at it this way: one sack of Diamond 
Corn Gluten Meal contains as much protein 
as half a ton of the silage-alfalfa ration. Are 
you going to get 8,000 lbs. more milk each 
year from each cow, by investing a little 
money in feed, or are you going to "save” 
that feed cost and let the 8,000 lbs. go? 
*1? 
T^IAMOND Com Gluten Meal and Buffalo 
Corn Gluten Feed are two economical 
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That’S why you’ll find them in 
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