The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-05

oaiN Dy Sdpldlu JOun V.
 Webb, on his place near that city. He
 told how he cultivated 1t and how 1t
 maintained ftselI year after year, stand
 Ing ever so many cuttings and feeding
 large number of stock. It requires cer-
 tain kind of land for alfalfa and soon
 after the article referred to had appeared
 farmers said that there were lands in
 Montgomery well adapted to its cultiva-
 tion and growth and that 1t had been tried and found to be successful in a few MT. Albert billiard has gone along quietly and planted a field of 1t and he
 is convinced, from his own experience
 that there is nothing like it, that requires
 larger returns for stock feeding than will
 alfalfa if you happen to get it on the
 right kind of land. Mir. billiard brought
 several samples to town Saturday to
 show what he had done in growing the
 stuff and to see 1t will convince you
 that 1t is the thing for stock feeding.
 There is great deal of land in Mont
 gomery suitable to it and it ought to be
 extensively planted and given a fair trial
 here.
 Mr. billiard says that when he wrote about 1t short while ago he did not know that 1t was so well thought of, but
 that deluge of letters from every sec ton of Alabama, and a score or more or visitors to his fields to see for them
 selves, has convinced him that the in
 terest in this clover is widespread.
 As a Stock Food.
 Speaking of alfalfa as d stock food, MT.
 Dillard says, .'it is a deplorable situation
 in an agricultural country, where the
 farmers are absolutely dependent upon
 the merchants and bankers for their very
 seed corn
 This state of affairs is nothing unusual
 in large part of Alabama almost every
 year. Why this Is so l do not pretend
 to say. l see the very best farmers iail
 Q aft
 condition has almost brought our tenant
 system to a focus Johnston grass has
 done much to prolong it, but that does
 not meet the requirements.
 Tt is very questionable proposition,
 In my mind, and always has been, wheth-
 CT or not the entire cotton crops of Mont
 gomery County, any thre years in sue
 cession, would liquidate all debts made
 during those years. in the purchase of
 corn, oats. meal and meat. The people
 are in a very receptive mood right now
 and will listen to almost anything that
 promises to aid in a solution of this
 knotty problem. While the farmers are
 under deep conviction 1 esteem 1t a very opportune time to throw at them some more blue hammered steel facts about
 this alfalfa clover
 Tt has been five weeks since I fed my
 horses an ounce of grain. They are still
 pulling $50 pound Hancock blow and
 never saw stock anywhere, do harder or
 better work My previous letters fully
 explained how l reduced the grain
 ration gradually. I make no allowance,
 but keep wagon load standing in the
 lot all the time. Such method might
 be deemed wasteful with any of the ordinary hay grasses, but it Is not so with alfalfa as hogs, chickens, ducks and turkeys are always ready to gobble up
 every leaf or stem as soon as 1t hits the ground.
 Alfalfa does not saliJate stock, an ob- lection often urged against all of the clo- yer family. l speak solely of the green
 and slightly wilted plant, as the weather has been so capricious that I have been unable to cure 1t into hay Experiments with alfalfa are nothing new in Alabama, and from all .informa- . tion can gather, fully go per cent. of all | failures has been due to one cause. name | ly, crowding out of the young plant. during the first season, by weeds and grasses. This difficulty can be obviated | by moving the young alfalfa just as often as you like. Don't hesitate to cut | 1t. and especially through d pro.racted fall when weeds and grasses have stop | ped growing. Then ret 1t alone and wait for the fall rains, nd you will be great
 ly surprised to see a beautiful growth spring up, in many places where you | thought that the plant had died. I have been asked repeatedly to tell | how l planted my alfalfa. 1 break up the land with a four-horse blow, harrow unllI every ClOu IS Sildt- | tered. do not plant at once but wait | until the land has had one or two beating rains This forms solid seed bed and disposes of all possible crevices. When ready to plant l use light harrow and make a surface disturpance of but little | more than one inch. I then SOW fifteen | pounds of seed per acre broadcast, one way, and a like amount Of seed directly across the first sowing, giving not less than thirty pounds per acre. This in | uniform distribution nf tho Gaad I do not use a harrow to cover but some kind of scrub brush. This may be urged as rather pro'ix, but alfalfa is very
 tender and exacting plant, when young, and the very hardest when established. Don't plant alfalfa on wet, overflow or seepy land and don't use stable ma nure on it until it is one year old. Try cotton seed meal.
 If you intend to plant alfalfa next fall break up your land deep now, and put | 1t in cowpeas, broadcast, one bushel per acre. Cut the peas about September l | and SOW the alfalfa. Even if the seasons are not favorable for deep preparation | of the soil. that will make but little diff ference as the peas will leave the land not only enriched, but in fine mechanical | condition to receive the seed
 | It is a very hard matter to tell just what soil suits alfalfa best. The plant is | s) wide in it's variations and often grows | beautifully where least expected anu ire | quently fails where he soil seems ideal. As 1 see 1t, alfalfa likes an alluvial soil. | rich in lime, that i; thoroughly drained. | Yet, only yesterday 1 showed MT. M. B. Houghton fully one acre of alfalfa, that would average two feet high, on a yell Jewish, chalky, lime hillside, that would not produce a stalk of corn three feet high. This IS only cited to prove the
 wide range of alfalfa.
 As an enricher of the soil, through its | power to extract nitrogen from the at | mUsphere and deposit 1t in the earth, all | falfa Is without an equal
 | Professor Buffum of the Wyoming EX- | pertinent Station, says: Land that had previously been in alfalfa produced $S tt Sl2 more wheat, $l6 more oats and $lt | more of potatoes than an adjoining plal | that had not been in alfalfa. tC. S.
 Bulletin, 133. p. 6)
 | At the Colorado Experiment station | an analysis of one ton of alfalfa hay showed A poun Is of nitrogen S.2l pounds of phosphoric acid. and 5O.9o pounds ol potash and 40 pounds of lime.
 | This would indicate that the hay alone | would make a very valuable fertilizer In order to show it's unquesuoned supe' | riority over Timothy and Kentucky Blue grass the two most popular grasses oi l the world, l will quote the average compositions of the two as composed with alfalfa. The analysis given are fur
 nisfed by E, W. Allep, Ph. D., of the
 Department of Agriculture at Washing | ton:
 Timothy-Protein. 5.9; water, 13.2; car | bohydrates, TAO; fat. 2.5.
 l Kentucky Blue Grass-Protein, S.2; wa | ter, 154; carbohydrates. B.1; fat, A. l lfD 4 !. fnr