W. L. Carlyle, dean of the Colorado agricultural college declares alfalfa hay is the basis of the feeding industry in northern Colorado. “Without alfalfa our agriculture would be of very little moment. Alfalfa forms the basis of all our sugar-beet growing. It not only enriches the soil in which it grows, but prepares it for the growing of sugar-beets in a way that no other crop or system or cultivation can, and while doing this preparatory work it yields an enormous tonnage of the most valuable feed for fattening sheep and cattle. Usually lambs are given free access to the hay and are allowed to eat all of it that they will.”
Lamb feeding in northern Colorado has been carried on quite extensively for a number of years, and with such success that “Fort Collins lambs” are recognized in the eastern markets as superior to anything that is shipped from any other section of the country. The name “Fort Collins sheep” has extended to all of northern Colorado, just as the “Greeley potato” is the term given to all potatoes grown in the northern part of the state.
In recent years many thousands of old ewes have been fed at the various sugar factories upon beet pulp, alfalfa hay and corn. The old ewes thrive much better upon the beet pulp than the lambs or younger sheep. It produces a very desirable sappiness of flesh, and when these sheep have been on this feed with alfalfa hay for two or three months and are then finished with corn, they bring the highest price on the market.
CHAPTER XVI.
Alfalfa and Bees
THE BEE FERTILIZES THE ALFALFA
It has been discovered that the honey bee is of even more importance to the alfalfa than the alfalfa is to the bee. The wonderful strength and speed of the bees take them long distances for their food and they have recourse to a great variety of plants. But the peculiar construction of the alfalfa blossom renders it unable to fertilize itself and its shape makes cross fertilization very difficult. In the marvelous “balance of good” in nature, alfalfa, like thousands of other plants, is aided in its lease on life by the insect world. It is not known just how many insects or birds assist this remarkable plant, but the honey bee is the most conspicuous, the most industrious, the most eager, and certainly the most useful.
Careful observations have been made of seed pods grown near colonies of bees, and also of those so far from any bee colonies that it was safely assumed no bees had visited the fields producing the pods. In every case it was found that those from nearby fields had from 50 to 75 per cent more seeds than the others and that they were larger and more perfectly developed. In Colorado and western Kansas, where bee culture has been greatly developed in recent years, it is found that the alfalfa seed crop in fields nearest to bee colonies is much heavier and of better quality than that of fields but a few miles away.
At the Kansas experiment station a small plat of vigorous alfalfa was covered just before coming into bloom with mosquito netting supported on sticks. It was therefore known that no bees nor other insects could come into contact with the blossoms. Later a careful examination disclosed that the pods which had formed were entirely without seeds.
HOW THE FERTILIZING IS ACCOMPLISHED
As suggesting something of the relation of bees and like insects to the cross fertilization of alfalfa blossoms and consequent increased seed production, Prof. S. J. Hunter, entomologist of the University of Kansas, who has spent much time making critical observations of bees in the alfalfa fields of the Middle West, writes the following for this volume: