The Book of Alfalfa

CHAPTER II.
Universality of Alfalfa

ITS WIDE DISTRIBUTION

As the history of alfalfa is traced in the preceding chapter the conclusion is reached that its distribution is not to be circumscribed by any hard and fast lines of climate and soil. It is grown profitably in every country of Europe, in central Asia, its original home, in Australia, the islands of the sea, and in almost every state and territory of the United States, and in Canada. Only two states, Maine and New Hampshire, and only one territory, Alaska, are left wholly in the experimental column. Everywhere else there have been such results as to prove that it ought to become, in greater or less degree, a staple crop on practically every farm, dependent only upon more energy, faith and skill on the part of the farmer, and a natural acclimation. There are several other states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Dakota where the experiment station experts are not fully ready to recommend it as a regular crop for every farm, yet, in each of these there are enterprising farmers who have for years found profit in its raising. The station authorities in Vermont say that success with alfalfa there "depends first on the man, and second on the soil."

W. R. Dodson, botanist of the Louisiana station, says it is his firm conviction that nothing will contribute so much as alfalfa toward making the southern farm self-supplied with feed for work animals, for the production of dairy products, and home raised meat. "I doubt," he also says, "if alfalfa does better anywhere outside the irrigated regions of the West than it does in the alluvial lands of Louisiana. We have had as high as eight cuttings in one year, with a total tonnage larger than is had in Kansas or Nebraska, and our annual rainfall is sixty-five inches, or more."

From Ontario, Canada, comes a report of a yield of four tons to the acre in three cuttings, on a clay hillside; at far-off Medicine Hat, Northwest Territory, it makes a growth pronounced "phenomenal," and at the experimental farm at Brandon, Manitoba, three cuttings per year are harvested. On a gravelly hill in the District of Columbia, a field was sown in April, 1900. Two crops were cut from it that summer, three in 1901, and the first cutting in 1902 yielded three tons per acre. In southern Minnesota, some thrifty Germans, not knowing that "alfalfa will not grow in Minnesota," have been raising it since 1872, while others were declaring it impossible. A half-score of men in the sagebrush wilds of Nevada decided to try it, and in 1872 they had 625 prosperous acres, without plowing and without irrigation. J. H. Grisdale, agriculturist of the Central experimental farm at Ottawa, (Bul. No. 46) says, "it is grown in Canada more or less extensively from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is the staple forage plant for winter in the dryer part of British Columbia, and it has been grown in Southern Alberta for many years. It is not much known in Manitoba, but is possible of easy propagation in almost all parts of Ontario. It is, and has been grown long and successfully in Quebec, and is not unknown in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick." In Cape Colony, South Africa, "lucerne can be cut from four to six times in summer and from once to twice in winter, and is the greatest forage plant in the world." In 1901 the British consul at Buenos Ayres reported alfalfa as covering "an enormous area in Argentina, and every year becoming more important."

NOT PARTICULAR AS TO SOIL

While experts have been declaring that alfalfa would only grow in certain soils and in certain climates it has proven adaptability to nearly all climates and almost all soils. It produces with a rainfall as scant as 14 inches, and in the Gulf states flourishes with 65 inches. It gives crops at an elevation of 8000 feet above sea level, and in southern California it grows below sea level to a height of six feet or over, with nine cuttings a year, aggregating ten to twelve tons. An authenticated photograph in possession of the writer, reproduced opposite page 231, shows a wonderful alfalfa plant raised in the (irrigated) desert of southern California, sixty feet below sea level, that measured considerably more than ten feet in height. Satisfactory crops are raised, but on limited areas as yet, in Vermont and Florida. New York has grown it for over one hundred years in her clay and gravel; Nebraska grows it in her western sand hills without plowing, as does Nevada on her sagebrush desert. The depleted cotton soils of Alabama and rich corn lands of Illinois and Missouri each respond generously with profitable yields to the enterprising farmer, while its accumulated nitrogen and the sub-soiling it effects are making the rich land more valuable and giving back to the crop-worn the priceless elements of which it has been in successive generations despoiled by a conscienceless husbandry.

Its introduction into Maryland was largely through the perseverance of Prof. W. T. L. Taliaferro of the agricultural college, who says: "The future for alfalfa for southern Maryland is bright, indeed, and with its general introduction will come a new era of prosperity for the 'lower counties.' Live stock farming will take the place of tobacco farming. The fertilizing elements of the soil will be concentrated at home instead of being shipped abroad. Larger crops will be raised. Soil improvement will take the place of soil exhaustion; worn-out farms will be restored to their original fertility."

THE ORACLES REFUTED

One by one the oracular statements of so-called experts have been shown at fault. One said, "it will grow wherever corn will grow;" and as promptly men from New York and Louisiana rise and say that they are growing it where corn will not grow. Another declares, "it will not grow over a hardpan or gumbo subsoil;" at once a New York man reports a good field of alfalfa with roots fifteen feet long that pass through six inches of hardpan which was so hard that it had to be broken with a pick axe in following the root. A Kansas man writes that he has eighty acres that has stood five years and promises to continue indefinitely, yielding 41/2 tons from three cuttings a year, and the whole of it on gumbo soil where corn raising was a failure. Another declares, "it must have a rich, sandy loam," and forthwith from the deserts of Nevada, the sand hills of Nebraska and the thin, worn, clay soils of the South come reports of satisfactory yields. Such results are significant, indicating better returns than any other crop brings from these varied soils, and that few farmers are justified in postponing the addition of alfalfa to their agriculture because of supposed hindrance of soil and climate.

A NEW YORK EXAMPLE

As citing an example, and suggestive of the fact that alfalfa not only grows but flourishes in the eastern states where the claim has been made that it would not grow, the following by the editor of the Rural New-Yorker, in his journal of September 3, 1904, is forcibly to the point:

"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...