The oasis., 1893-08-10
ALrALrAIN CROP ROTATION.

the Kansas Farmer gives its readers
 some very good advice in the follow
 ing article:
 Most farmers look upon their alfalfa
 fields as little less than permanent in-
 stitutions. to be pastured or moved as
 long as the return is profitable. and
 after that point is passed possibly
 plowed tip and planted t0 some other
 crop, the selection Of which is in no
 way influenced by its fitness to follow
 alfalfa. In pursuit of this policy a great deal of the possible profit in the cultivation of alfalfa is lost. No other crop, with the possible exception of
 red clover, is as valuable a fertilizer of land as alfalfa In common with all
 leguminous plants. it has the power of extracting nitrogen from the air and storing if in the soil, for tue ben eft of future generations of plant growth, and it has also the advantage peculiar to itself, of penetrating to the deeper layers of tue soil and bringing up from the depths clements of fcrtil- ity which are out of reach of most plants.
 Where alfalfa is allowed to succeed
 itself. year after year large propor- tion of the benefit which might be derived from it's power to enrich the soil is lost. Alfalfa, itself has little use for the atmospheric nitrogen which it stores in the soil. or for the surplus of ash clements which it draws from the sub-soil. for it can gather more from the same sources when they are needed. Unless alfalfa is soon followed by thecrops which need and can make use of the fertility which it has rem dered available, this fertility is in a great measure wasted.
 The only method of growing alfalfa so that the most benefit may be de- rived from it iS to make it part of a rotation. just as red clover is used where it is a possible crop. A non-le- gumiaous crop. following q few sea sons growth of alfalfa, will make use of the fertility gathered, to the marked profit of the proprietor.
 In Colorado, where alfalfa is very extensively grown, it is the common practice to grow it in rotation with  other crops. There few alfalfa fields stand more than four or five years, and it may be observed that as usual | thing, the farmers who dogrow alfalfa on the same land without any breaks. | are of the same general class as the Kansas farmers who crop their land to wheat successiyely for ten or dozen | years. Colorado farmers are firmly | by long experience and re- peated trials that it pays much better to break up the alfalfa fields, every few | years. than it does to allow them to | stand. One of the most extensive and | successful alfalfa growers of Arapahoe county was recently asked: Can you afford to plow up your alfalfa fields after getting the crops of but two seasons from them; Does not the heavy expense of seeding. involving almost the total loss of the use of the Hand for a year make it necessary that you should allow Co remain in alfalfa longer than two years, to make it proiitabley" The reply was: We certainly cannot afford to let al- 'falfa stand much longer than two 'SeasoS. We must have land on which ito SOW oats and plant corn and pota- toes, and we have found there is no other half SD good as alfalfa sod. lt seems almost too bad to blow alfalfa under so soon after it has cost us a '