A METHOD FOR THE SMALL FARMER
In the Central West where labor is scarce and land comparatively low in price, farmers are not likely to adopt the soiling system while such conditions exist; but east of the Mississippi river, and especially in New York, Pennsylvania and New England, where land is high and labor scarce, alfalfa offers great possibilities as a soiling crop. The small farmer who now cannot afford to raise many pigs, because he does not raise enough corn to fatten them, will find that by soiling alfalfa he can maintain from May to September from five acres as many as ten cows and fifty pigs; and that these pigs, with some grain from the first of August, while being fed green alfalfa, may by the middle of November be made ready for market. If he has another five acres of alfalfa for hay, it will yield enough in three cuttings to go far toward wintering his cows, a team of horses, and his sows. His ten acres will be growing richer every year, and at the end of five years be in prime condition to yield him big returns in corn, wheat, or potatoes and other vegetables. Alfalfa is distinctly a crop adapted to the small farmer, everywhere; there is, as a rule, little question that this method of utilizing it brings much greater returns per acre than if it were used as pasturage or hay.
Green alfalfa when pastured, (barring bloat), or cut and fed daily is peculiarly valuable for all such young stock as colts, lambs, calves and pigs. It tends to develop strength of bone and hastens the growth of muscle.
Alfalfa Field in Central New York
Showing growth August 22, 1907, seven days after third cutting
Fourth Cutting of Alfalfa in Shawnee County, Kansas
Photo taken in September
A Second Cutting of Alfalfa (July 28) in Shawnee County, Eastern Kansas
This was sown on the last half of the preceding September. Four cuttings probable with an aggregate yield of four tons per acre