The Arizona sentinel., 1902-08-20
Grow Alfalfa and Get Rich.


 Fred NJ. West, president of the Stock ton chamber of commerce, has writer a good article on alfalfa growing. Tn, article is given herewith:
 Away over on the other side of tn, world there is little country that sup plies large part of Europe with it butter. This country is Holland. The farmer has six months in which he car work out of doors with his stock: the rest of the year he must house and feee them. The land and canal tax that he pays is the highest known. With al these disadvantages the Holland farm CT is able to make a profit out of the dairying industry, and to successfully compete with the dairymen of England Germany and France.
 In the two great central valleys oi California there are hundreds of thous- ands of acres especially adapted to the growth of alfalfa. There is no better known green feed for stock that this succulent grass. Land that will grow an average of six tons of alfalfa to the acre in four or five cuttings can be ob- tained in San Joaquin county for as Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys lands can be purchased at the same price or little more. The counties of Sacramento, Contra Costa and San Joaquin are particularly favored in this regard on account of having navigable waterways contiguous to alfalfa land, which results in low freight rates for the product of the dairy.
 Comparing this favored region with Holland. we find that the dairyman here is not compelled to house and feed his stock during the winter, and that everything leads up to the belief that butter can be produced here for less cost per pound than it can be in Hol- land. The irrigation charge, where alfalfa land requires irrigation, is not more than $2.50 per acre in San Joa- quin county, and in the Turlcck dis trict it is but 50 cents an acre. The eX- perience of the San Joaquin county dairyman has been that he can raise a COW to the acre on alfalfa. and that a net profit of S50 per annum per COW is very conservative estimate. On some of the island lands too moist fer alfalfa Australian rye grass has been planted and found to be splendid feed fer beef or dairy stock. On one ranch on the San Joaquin river, near Stockton, 68 head of stock were pastured all summer on thirteen acres of this rye grass and they no more than kept it fed down.
 It has been only within the past two or three years that the opportunities in the dairying industry have been realized in California. Factories for the manufacture of cheese, condensed milk and other milk products are springing up throughout the state. and hCunS VII OC lOuLO tO lIIdI hSC Cuc pTO- duct. The United States department of agriculture has been exploiting the Orient as market for American but ter put up in dramatically sealed cans. There is good reason to believe that Japan and China and the Philippines will consume an increasing amount of milk products, and who will furnish these products if not California?
 The experience of the past few years in San Joaquin county has been that a man owning twenty acres or more of alfalfa is assured of steady income. He is more independent than the grain grower, the Orchardist or tho vineyard ist. And when it is considered that man can buy twenty acres of alfalfa land for cost as low as $500, there is no doubt that the dairy industry will show very rapid increase in 1902, as it did in 1901. A farmer in San Joaquin county has cleared $13,00O in the past four years in the dairy business. know of no instance where man has lost money in this industry, and if in telligently directed, blieve it will be many years before dairying will cease to be profitable in California"