New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 269 
until 1889, when half of a small bulletin’ was devoted to notes upon 
alfalfa from various sources, to a record of the crop cut in 1888, 
to chemical analyses of the green forage and hay and to a digestion 
experiment in which alfalfa was fed. In 1894 the first bulletin pub- 
lished in the East devoted exclusively to the growth of alfalfa was 
issued by this Station, No. 80, which gave the results of feeding 
trials with alfalfa forage. Previous to 1889, however, favorable 
mention had been made of the plant in the weekly newspaper bulle- 
tins of Station progress, and most of the early annual reports gave 
notes and data of the test plats. In 1886, in particular, favorable 
notice was given® to the permanence of the plats of alfalfa first 
seeded. Most excellent crops were reported on these and on plats 
sown in succeeding years. These good results were secured in 
spite of unfavorable conditions, for ‘“‘ the seed bed was heavy, cold 
and retentive, with a very solid clay bed underlying at a depth of 
about three feet. The alfalfa grew and flourished, although spar- 
ingly fertilized, and in 1886 was apparently as strong and vigorous 
as in 1883, the first cutting in 1886 yielded at the rate of over ten 
tons per acre of green fodder, and four crops were cut. No changes 
of weather or temperature seem to have affected this plant thus 
far as grown here.’ On another larger plat seeded in 1885 the 
four cuttings in 1886 gave at the rate of 24 tons dry hay, 7% tons 
green forage, 57% tons green forage and 4 tons green forage, re- 
spectively, per acre. The yields in 1888, as given in Bulletin No. 
16, were at the rate of 1514 tons and 143% tons (green) per acre, 
The ‘feeding trials given in Bulletin 80 proved conclusively the 
great value of the alfalfa for milk production. In the succeeding 
years this crop, with corn silage, has been the main reliance for 
forage for the herd. It has also been fed with excellent results to 
horses, sheep, swine (in small amounts) and poultry. 
In 1897 a second bulletin* on alfalfa was issued which emphasizes 
the value of the plant and urges that trial of the crop be made in 
any locality where there is a fair prospect of its growing. This 
bulletin gives the average yield from five crops of alfalfa, each of 
four cuttings, as seventeen tons of green forage per acre. This 
yield exceeds, in total amount, that of any forage or root crop that 
can be grown in this section, except corn, while the feeding value 
of the alfalfa is far greater than that of corn because of its large 
* Bul. 16:121-129 (1880). 
* Rpt. 5:134 (1886). 
*Bul. 118 (1897); same, Rpt. 16:551-560 (1897). 
