The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1901-06-08

Prof. Clothier, of the Kansas Experiment
Station in his admirably written article on
Alfalfa, says: "The cultivation and feeding
of Alfalfa marks the highest development of
our modern agriculture. Alfalfa is one Of
NATURES choicest gifts to man. 1t is the pre-
server and the conserver of the homestead.
1t is peculiarly adapted to country with a
republican government, for it smiles alike on
the rich and the poor. 1t does not fail from
old age. 1t loves sunshine, converting golden
sunbeams into gold coin in the pockets ofthrlf-
ty husbandmen. 1t is the greatest mortgage
litter yet discovered. The Alfalfa plant fur
nishes the protein to construct and repair the
brains of Statesmen 1t builds up the muscles
and bone of the war horse and gives his rider
sinews ofiron. Alfalfa makes the hens caekle
and the turkeys gobble. 1t induces the pig to
squeal and grunt with satisfaction. 1t causes
the contented COW TO give pailsful of creamy
milk and the Shorthorn and Whitefaced steers
to bawl for the feed racks. Alfalfa softens
the disposition of the colt and hardens his bone
and muscles 1t fattens lambs as no other
feed and promotes wool-clip that is averta-
BILE golden fleece. Itcompels skim milk calves
TO make gains of two pounds day. 1t enables
the Kansas farmer to produce pork at a cent
and a-half per pound and beef at two cents.
Alfalfa transformed the Kansas upland from
sometime waste of quilted clay banks into an
undulating meadow fecund with plant food.
1t drills for water, working 365 days in the
year without any recompense from man. 1t
brings gold into the farmers purse by pro
cesses more mysterious than the alchemy OF
old The farmer with fifty acre meadow ef
Alfalfa will have steady, enjoyable employ
ment from June 10 October, for as soon as he
has finished moving the hay at one end OF the
6all - MIL bsa du for the af
the other.
What Alfalfa has done for Kansas it will
more than do for our Gunpowder Valley Our
people can buy in Kansas City, Omaha and
Chicago and from the Panhandle region of
Texas grade stock calves, rich in the blood of
the beef fbreeds-Short. horns, White faced and
Angus--at lay down cost of SIS to $18 a head
and in twenty four months you can with AL
fafa, in conjunction with the Silo, ripen these
steers for the Liverpool market, realizing 500
to 500 for them. This will enable you to re-
tain the fertility of our lands and at the same
time relieve the Baltimore market of the gut
of milk that our people are daily sending to
the milk buyer at less than cost, and notwith
standing the low price of milk and the diff
cultes that attend its production and sale, the
land d-owner must resort to some branch of the
animal industry to retain the fertility of the
soil. The steer calves that q feeder would
purchase in our local market are so strong in
the dairy blood breeds, that when they mature
the expert buyer will not take them at a price
that will pay for the bi-milk products, which
he has been compelled to buy from the various
mill trusts for protein in the shape of mill feed
which he must have to balance his carbonacous
food, and with the exception of his clover
hay, all the foods that you are growing upon
your farms are excessively rich in corbohy-
drates and correspondingly poor in protein,
and so the carbohydrates are always in excess
and frequently going to waist in the shape of
corn, fodder, straw and timothy nay. 1t does
not add dollar 10 your wealth by growing
them, for if you consume them you must buy
from the various trusts nitrogenous foods at an
enhanced cost of nearly one-third more in
value since the mills have created a trust, and
If sold from your farms in the shape of corn,
corn fodder, timothy hay, rye and wheat
straw, you simply sell your plant food at half
price and pay toll to the turnpike company
beside. and then replace this same plant food
by buying from fertilizer trust in the shape
of phosphate and then again pay the turnpike
company toll to haul it to your farms. Land
farmed under this system rapidly deterioates
and the owner grows poorer.
The most expensive and easily depleted
element of fertility in our soil is nitrogen. All
crops except Alfalfa clover, COW peas and the
yetches, simply draw on the available stores in