New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 331 
The outdoor silo stack can be built up at any convenient point 
for spring and summer feeding to take the place of the variety of 
soiling crops which require so much forethought and labor in the 
busiest season of the year. This storing of food in a cheap form 
can become one of the greatest safeguards against droughts and 
failure of crops. 
SoreHum (Saccharatum ). 
The crop reported above with the farm crops grew on a poor 
knoll where we were unable to secure more than two-thirds of a 
fair stand of plants, and that was so late getting a start to grow 
that the amount of crop produced was a surprise. This crop 
would undoubtedly have been doubled or trebled with favorable 
weather. On the plats, a trial of Link’s Hybrid, Early Amber and 
Early Orange sorghum proved the Early Amber to be preferable 
here for a forage crop, owing to the others being later. Part of the 
crop in this trial was checked in growth for a long time, but, by 
frequent hoeing during the dry weather, it started to grow again 
earlier than in the large field, and from part of the 6 plats the 
yield was, when cut for the silo, at the rate of 22.9 tons per 
acre. | 
One-half of the old silo will be filled with this crop another 
season, if the small amount now in silo comes out well, and a good 
crop can be grown for the purpose. 
ALFALFA, oR Lucerne (Medicago Sativa). 
This valuable forage plant has been cultivated on the Station 
plats since 1882 and reported upon favorably, hesitatingly at first, 
but with more confidence as its tenacity of life and heavy crops 
produced carried the conviction that it is one of the profitable 
forage cropsfor New York. Writers cling to the recommendation 
of sandy soil for alfalfa, but here on stiff clay it has thrived since 
1882 on the original seeding. Later seedings have yielded well, 
and to all appearances it is perfectly hardy when well established. 
It is a little difficult to get a perfect “stand,” and makes a slow 
growth the first year. Hence, weeds are apt to choke it; but if 
past its first season, dairymen can depend on a fair clover crop 
from it for several years in succession. 
