270 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. 
amount of digestible protein (875 pounds per acre, as compared 
with 300 from corn). 
With the publication of this bulletin the Station authorities began 
an active campaign for the introduction of alfalfa into different 
sections of the State. This work has been consistently followed, 
by correspondence and by talks at farmers’ institutes. In this in- 
stitute work and in other ways of commending alfalfa and urging 
its spread, the Station work has been seconded and supplemented 
by the efforts of the other institute workers and by the editors of 
leading agricultural papers. As a result of these efforts the culture 
of the crop is now spreading rapidly. The United States census of 
1900 reports its growth in forty of the sixty-one counties of the 
State, with a total area of 5,582 acres devoted to the crop. Data 
collected by the Station indicate that at present alfalfa is grown in 
every county of the State that has agricultural interests and that 
the area is now more than 10,000 acres. 
The efforts of the Station during later years have been devoted 
to studies of the conditions necessary for the establishment and best 
growth of alfalfa, and in control of the pests of the crop. These 
researches are discussed more in detail elsewhere, but may be said 
to indicate that the use of lime upon the soil some time previous 
to sowing the alfalfa seed is profitable in a large proportion of 
cases, that inoculation with soil from a successful field greatly in- 
creases the chances of success, that dodder seed is very commonly 
found in commercial alfalfa seed, and that this pest when once 
introduced is very destructive and is hard to eradicate. Sifting the 
alfalfa seed, by a method worked out by the Station Botanist,® is 
very effective in getting rid of the dodder seeds. Unsuccessful 
attempts have also been made to grow alfalfa seed upon the Station 
farm. 
BARLEY. 
The work with barley has not been extensive nor the results 
striking. During the first eight years of Station work, variety tests® 
with barley were made several times. These were not continued 
long enough nor under sufficiently varied conditions to give the 
results great weight. As with other crops grown during these years, 
however, careful data were collected showing the characteristics of 
® Circ. 8, 1907. 
®*Rpts. 1:34 (1882); 2:141 (1883); 3:308, 400 (1884); 5:117 (1886); 6:64 
(1887) ; 8:288 (1889). 
