“A farmer visiting the New York state fair this year will do well to take time to look at some of the alfalfa fields near Syracuse. Whether it means that the soil in this locality is well suited to alfalfa, or that farmers have learned how to grow it, it is a fact that the crop makes a wonderful showing there. You find it everywhere—in great billowy fields of green, along the roadsides—even in vacant city lots. The crop crowds in whether the seed is sown by hand, dropped from a passing load or scattered by the wind. The majority of the farms show great fields of it, and the character of farming is slowly changing as more and more alfalfa is cut. On fruit farms or small private places the crop is changing methods and habits. A few acres in alfalfa provides all the roughness needed for stock on these small places, and gives extra room for fruit or similar crops. In fact, the most interesting thing about these alfalfa fields is the way they are changing the entire conditions of the country. It is similar to what happens when a new industry is established in a town or city.
“The Grange meeting at a Mr. Worker’s farm, was held in a great barn. He had delayed the alfalfa cutting so that the barn might be empty. Some other farmers nearby had already cut. I had a chance to see alfalfa growing under what seemed to me about the toughest chance you can give a plant. The city of Syracuse is buying gravel from his field, to use on the street. The workmen are digging right into the hill, and it requires hard labor to pick up this tough, hard soil. As they dig they follow the roots of the alfalfa down. Some of the roots are quite as large as my thumb, and I am sure that many of them had gone down twenty feet at least into this tough soil. These big roots make plowing an alfalfa sod anything but fun. This is one of the few objections to the crop. I had supposed that the plant does its best where it can work down into an open or gravel subsoil. I have been told by one who is called an ‘expert’ that alfalfa cannot thrive on a hardpan subsoil, yet here it was going down into the toughest soil I ever saw, and covering the surface with a perfect mat of green stalks. Mr. Worker goes so far as to say that the tougher the subsoil the better the alfalfa goes through it, provided water does not stand about the roots. That is one point upon which all agree—the alfalfa cannot stand wet feet. It must have water enough; that is why its roots go down so far, but it will not thrive in wet fields where water does not run easily away.
“On other farms I saw the alfalfa growing at the top of steep clay hills, which were formerly almost useless for farm purposes unless stuffed with stable manure. Now that alfalfa has been started these hill-tops have become about the most profitable fields on the farm. At another place I saw a fair crop of alfalfa growing in a thin streak of soil over a rocky ledge. There were not eighteen inches of soil covering the solid rock, yet the alfalfa was thriving. I have been told that this is the condition under which alfalfa will not grow, yet here it was giving more forage than any red clover we can grow. I have said that the spreading of these alfalfa fields is changing the character of farming in central New York. It is not easy to realize just what this means without visiting this favored section. This new forage plant brings fertility and feed to the farm. It is just like having a fertilizer factory and a feed store drop out of the skies upon the farm, to get this alfalfa well started. Of course as the farmer learns what the crop will do he uses it more and more to feed both stock and the farm. It would not be a very bright farmer who would continue to grow wheat or some other annual crop which brings him $25 per acre when a permanent crop like alfalfa will guarantee $60. Some farmers are quicker to see this than others, but in the end the majority of them see it and then we see a change. These alfalfa farmers are giving a great object lesson, and their farms are more interesting than any exhibit at the state fair.”
CHAPTER III.
Yields, and Comparisons With Other Crops
COMPARED WITH CLOVER
Many things are understood best through contrasts with others better known. In every part of the country certain crops are considered standard, and all others are judged by comparison with these. For example, red clover in most parts of the United States is ranked as the richest and best yielding forage, and the fertilizer and renovator par excellence.
The Massachusetts experiment station after a series of tests reports that 100 pounds of clover contain 47.49 pounds of digestible food and 6.95 pounds of proteids, while 100 pounds of alfalfa contain 54.43 pounds of digestible food and 11.22 pounds of proteids.
The New Jersey station reports that the average yield per annum of green clover to the acre is 14,000 pounds, and of green alfalfa 36,500 pounds; the protein in the clover is 616 pounds and in the alfalfa, 2214 pounds; one ton of alfalfa has 265 pounds of protein, and clover only 246 pounds. But alfalfa will produce three, four, or more cuttings each year, while clover will produce but one or at most two. Further, clover will ordinarily survive but two years, while alfalfa will last from ten to one hundred, thus saving many plowings and seedings. It is also estimated that the stubble and root-growth of alfalfa are worth at least four times as much for humus as are those of clover, while the mechanical and other beneficent effects of the long alfalfa roots far excel those of clover. The alfalfa field is green for pasturage a month earlier in the spring than clover and may be mowed a month earlier. It starts a vigorous growth at once after cutting, covering the ground with its luxuriant foliage before the second growth of clover has made any substantial progress.
The Wisconsin experiment station says that “one acre of alfalfa yields as much protein as three acres of clover, as much as nine acres of timothy and twelve times as much as an acre of brome grass.”