ALABAMA
Prof. J. F. Duggar, Director Alabama experiment station.—Alfalfa is grown in Alabama with entire success on the lime soil of the central prairie region of the state. This is a strip of land from 10 to 20 miles wide, extending southeast and northwest almost across the state and into Mississippi. Beginning near Union Springs, this prairie passes near Montgomery, Selma, Demopolis, Greensboro and northwestward towards Columbus, Miss. On the prairie lands in this area alfalfa affords from three to six cuttings per year, usually four, and the yield is from three to six tons per acre. Irrigation is not practiced. The seed is sown either in September or in the early part of March, usually from 20 to 24 pounds per acre. Almost a full crop is secured the first year from fall seeding, but only from one-third to two-thirds of a full crop is secured the first year from sowing seed in March. It is not customary on this soil to use fertilizer on alfalfa, but an application of even a light coat of stable manure immensely increases the yield on the poor spots. Failure has generally attended attempts to grow alfalfa on non-calcareous or sandy soils, though under favorable conditions, with liberal manuring and constant warfare against crab-grass, it occasionally succeeds. In Bulletin No. 127 of the Alabama experiment station the results in alfalfa growing are summarized as follows: Usually the best crop to precede spring sown alfalfa is cotton, especially if cotton follows melilotus (Sweet clover). The best crop to prepare the land for fall sown alfalfa is cowpeas, sown very thickly. Farmers have found that alfalfa thrives when sown on Johnson grass meadows, holding its own, at least for the first few years, against this aggressive grass. Dodder, a yellow threadlike growth, is a serious enemy of alfalfa. One of the remedies consists in mowing and burning. Seed merchants often pass alfalfa seed through a machine which is claimed to remove the dodder seed. On sandy upland soils at Auburn, alfalfa has not afforded very profitable yields. On such soils it requires heavy applications of lime or barnyard manure, and it is believed that more profitable use can be made of manure. At Auburn neither nitrate of soda nor cottonseed meal very greatly increased the yield of alfalfa that was properly stocked with root tubercles. Acid phosphate and potash fertilizers are considered indispensable here, and generally advisable on sandy or other soils not rich in lime. Inoculation with soil from old fields of either alfalfa or Bur clover greatly increases the yields of alfalfa growing on sandy land. The germ that causes tubercles to develop on Sweet clover also causes tubercles to develop on the roots of alfalfa. Hence artificial inoculation of alfalfa is not necessary when it is grown on prairie land that has recently borne a crop of melilotus. Artificial inoculation of alfalfa is probably advisable even for prairie soils when it is uncertain whether either the melilotus or alfalfa germs are present in great numbers. In regions in Alabama where neither alfalfa, melilotus, nor Bur clover is extensively grown, inoculation of alfalfa is advisable. For this purpose one may use soil from old fields of either of these plants or inoculating material prepared in the laboratory.