Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1899-06-22
Az ALFALFA STORY.
Alfalfa on Tough Clay-rOws Know
il For n Coco Thing.

IL For Coco Thing.
have bad 81 years experience on as
heavy and tenacious yellow clay as, !
believe. exists in New York state II
lies on what is kLCwn as the Big ridge.
four miles south Of Lake Ontario and
anywhere from one to six lies west of
Rochester. As to the tenacity of this
clay | have known tenants occupying
farms adjoining on the west to ploT
the land when wet, allow the sun t
bake it for ten days. hitch team
weighing nearly 5000 pounds to an
iron roller which weighed about
ton. drive over the field one way and,
when they came back, not he able to
tell where they had be- n. This may
sound somewhat fishy TO sand farmers,
but l believe there are clay farmers
who can verify my statement. This
land is high and rolling.
On the land above described there is
piece of alfalfa which has been in the
ground for more than ten years. 1t
was seeded too thin, grows coarse and
does not cover the ground well. Never
theless it will yield twice as much feed
during any season as will red clover.
| know this to be a fact as we rented
ii for one year. using the alfalfa for
COW feed. We have ON our own place
about eight acres of alfalfa, two acres
seeded in all apple orchard in 1893 (not
enough seed sown), two acres seeded in
an apple orchard in 1895, 80 pounds of
seed per acre; four acres seeded in an
open field in 1898, 35 pounds per acre.
The first seven inches of this soil are
dark and crumbly when properly titled.
The next ~ feet are yellow hard pan.
The next foot is soft rock that readily
yields to the pick. The next 40 feet are
vegetable clay.
We prerare the soil by blowing as
early in the spring as possible, make
fine seed bed and SOW one bushel of oats
per acre. The object of the oats is to
keep weeds down. After the oats are
sown we go on with wheelbarrow
seeder. sowing III pounds of alfalfa
seed per acre; then we cross, sowing
the same amount the other way, after
which we harrow lightly.
A writer who relates the foregoing
experience in Rural New Yorker con-
cludes with the following emphatically
expressed:
Alfalfa won't do anything if its feet
are kept in water. On the last piece
sown we have about one square rod in
extent where the water stands. There
the alfalfa is dead Our soil is in high
state of fertility.
As to cows and calves liking alfalfa,
we have mixed it and red clover to-
gether, fed il tc calves, and they would
pick out the alfalfa first Cows prefer
it to any other forage we have fed.
Water Farming Highly Profitable.
Experiments have verified the state
ment that an acre of water properly
cultivated will yield heterogeneous food
for man far in excess of an acre of land
under the most successful cultivation,
and much more cheaply, and. therefore.
other things being equal, the water
areas should be the most profitable for
farming operations. says the Rhode
Island station. in considering the utili-
cation of waste products and waste
places as a part of the nitrogen prob
lem But. it is added, at present even
the little knowledge necessary for such
water farming operations or aquicul-
ture. is not easily available for those
who can apply it directly, especially in
this country. In the older countries
considerable progress has been made
and agricultural operations are extern
sively carried ON in Japan, China. Italy
Germany, France and Holland. Every.
farm has its fish pond, frog and terra
pin yards; every cubic yard of water,
every available yard of bottom in the
bays and estuaries, is utilized for Guilt
walton. and in very many cases millions
of dollars of capital are invested in
marine farming, the staple crops being
the various species of fish. shellfsh and
algs.