Mr. C. L. Hill. ALFALFA. Chas. L. Hi'l, Rosendale, Wis. The concentrate part of our feed ration is increasing in cost every year, and especially is this true of feeds which are rich in protein. With this thought in mind, it is easily understood why the raising of alfalfa is attracting increased attention in Wisconsin every year. When we un derstand that early cut, well cured alfalfa hay is as rich in digestible protein as wheat bran, we will begin to realize its true value. Where Alfalfa Will Grow. Up to a very few years ago it was generally understood that this plaut would flourish only in the west ani southwest, and the early failures to grow it in Wisconsin were evidently due in some measure to trying to grow it in the same manner as it was grown in the west. I have in the past two years seen it growing, and doing well, in many parts of Wisconsin and on the bleak hills around Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota, the hay being so plenty there that it was selling for $6.00 per ton delivered. In January I visited three days around Syracuse and Fayetteville, N. Y., and there are fields of it there 20 years old and many 10 years old and in good shape. It is revolutionizing the agriculture at those places. The Best Soil for Alfalfa. I believe it can be grown on any well drained soil in Wisconsin, but it seems to do best on soil with clay subsoil, with broken limestone foundation. It is the universal testimony that it will not grow well on soil where water is less than 4 to 6 feet from the surface. It was growing York finely in New on land where there was only 4 to 12 inches of soil on top of limestone ledges. Have the soil rich to start alfalfa. Planting and Harvesting. Lightly manure, plow in fall, work very early in the spring and then work it some more. Sow without nurse crop, or with light seeding of grain, preferably barley, because it comes off early. Do not cut a crop of hay the first year, but leave a good stand on the ground for winter protection. Be sure to have good seed and sow 20 to 30 pounds per acre. I have here a sample of good seed germinating on cotton. The best seed costs 141⁄2 cent per pound this year, SO use it properly. It will not be so expensive compared with clover seed | day came a few hours sun cured it as it seems when you realize that in fine shape. If the capping and the seeding will last for a term of moving seems like a good deal of years. work, remember that your bran costs you $14.00 to $18.00 per ton, and alfalfa is just as good. You would not think of leaving bran out in the rain. The Hay. Cut it when 10 to 20 per cent of the blossoms have appeared, slightly curing in windrow, and finish under hay caps. I have a sample here of the cap I use. It is made of heavy, The Feeding Value of Alfalfa. What will eat it, you ask? I ask, unbleached cotton, 40 inches square,, what will not eat it? Let it stand in piles several days, moving the piles once if it is to stand more than four days, so as not to injure the plants beneath. My third crop last year was cut in the rain, raked the next day, when the water was barely off, and stood in the piles for a week. It rained or was dark and damp every day, and when a good It is the first that my COWS Mr. would leave corn silage to eat. The farms need it, and it is the universal testimony that alfalfa when plowed under leaves the land in the very finest condition. ounce Alfalfa a Permanent Crop. and they are all right, the caps never Alfalfa culture has passed the x- blow off in any of the storms we have perimental stage in Wisconsin and had. Mr. Hoard is recommending anI urge you all to sow at least a small other weight, a four nut, bepiece this spring, and I am sure you cause they are less liable to tangle. will increase your acreage next year. The cloth you want to call for is the I recently met a Chicago man whose same grade as Atlantic A sheeting, farm was at Waukegan, just over the unbleached. It will cost you in this line into Illinois, who has been grow-quality possibly nine to 11 cents. I Cow Barn of C. L. Hill, Every Cow in the Sunshine, Barn Whitewashed. ing it a number of years and now think this cost 11 cents, but it s has 120 acres in alfalfa. Ex-Gov. Hoard and several others around Ft. Atkinson have been growing it for five years or more, and it will pay you I am sure to go there next summer and see it growing. DISCUSSION. Mr. C. L. Hill-I have a cap here that was used last fall with clover and alfalfa. It is 40 inches square with a weight attached to each corner, they are old half horse shoes finer than necessary. earlier, I would cut it before it blos-, once tried it, and it showed a marked somed at all. There couldn't be any- improvement above the previous year, thing much poorer than alfalfa when it is overripe. I bought some at Omaha to feed my cattle and it was so old I couldn't feed it, so I put it in for bedding for the old bull, but he wouldn't lie down on it. Supt. McKerrow-Here are two samples grown in Sheboygan county. the second and third crop growing better. Mr. Wing told us about alfalfa culture at Madison. You know you never can make a mistake in put. ting manure on an alfalfa field, and he says that where you expect to SOW alfalfa, manure your land just before you plow it in and after that you Primrosedale 8606, Guernsey Cow on Farm of C. L. Hill. Official Yearly Record: 576.75 lbs. fat; 10,914.9 lbs. milk; 5.37 av. per cent of fat. This gentleman has grown it six or | won't be troubled very much about seven years. Mr. Nordman-Did you your soil to begin with? inoculation, but, mind you, he says inoculate it don't do to top-dress alfalfa after the first year; the roots get down so deep in the earth that manure put on top will have hardly any effect. That is the universal testimony aroun Syracuse where they raise a great deal of it. Mr. Hill-No, sir, we did not. The first year I might say the hay was very uneven. Some weeds came in besides the alfalfa and there was also considerable white clover and wild vetch. Before the second crop I inoculated the lot, putting on a six acre piece that I had a wagonload of soil from another field where I had The Chairman-Have you triel inoculating it from the roadside where sweet clover grows? Mr. Hill-No, sir, sweet clover bas |