The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-13
Letters to The Editor.
Experiments With Alfalfa and Other
 Experiment Station Work.

experiments With Alfalfa and Other | Experiment Station Work. Auburn. Ala, May g. 1903
 Editor The Advertiser.
 In your issue of this date appears a brief article entitled Work for Experi- ment Stations and signed "Clodhopper." The writer of that article takes the req sonabio position that the distribution of literature relative to alfalfa is rather the proper work of an experiment station than of the Commercial and Industrial Association of Montgomery. As he has evidently failed to see any publication on tnis particular subject from the Ex- pertinent Station at Auburn or from any Of the district agricultural schools he asks in irony whether a tracer does not need to be sent out to find the institutions doing experimental work in Alabama. The Experiment Station at Auburn has record of which no Alabamian can be ashamed. It has given an account of a part or It's work in the 123 bulletins which lt nas issued covering. though not always at great length, nearly all the most inn portant questions of Southern agricul- ture Each bulletin is issued in an edi- ton Of u,000 copies and the bulletins are sent free to any one applying for them. The Experiment Station endeavors to aid the farmers of Alabama, not only by its publications. but by means of careful re- plies to the thousands of letters which every year are received by it's officers in their several departments of specialized work.
 This institution has not neglected the subject of alfalfa. True it has not in it's bulletins devoted many pages to this unsur- passed forage plant. However, in a bull letin published by the writer as early as August, 1897, experiments with alfalfa were described, the result of which ex- periments showed that he usual failures with alfalfa in the Gulf States on non calcareous soils could be avoided at little expense. and that the growth could be more than doubled by simple though scientific process. Again in press bulle- when alfalfa could be sown to advan- tage, I issued a brief bulletin giving di- rections for the culture of alfalfa.
 Experiments with alfalfa have been un- der way in the Agricultural Department Of this station for several years, among the problems investigated being the best time to SOW the seed. best fertilizers, ef- fects of 1ime,, effects of inoculation. and and of sowing the seed. An obscure fun gous disease existing on the station farm and killing the plants and the unprece- dented drought of last year made the growing of alfalfa here more difficult than would usually be the case and made it necessary to continue the experiments another year before publishing the re- suits.
 In spite of the purely local difficulties attending the growing of alfalfa here, important conclusions have been reach ed. The oldest alfalfa is now ready to be cut for hay, standing Is to 20 inches high and beginning to bloom. Last year in spite of dry weather the same plot af- forded three cuttings. The plots of al- falfa sown last fall Have just been moved to check the growth of weeds and thus to give better opportunity to the crop.
 A striking demonstration of the ad- vantages of lining and of inoculating the land Is afforded by certain other plots sown last fall. Where the plants were inoculated and lime applied the alfalfa plants are now much greener and about twice as tall as where either lining or inoculation was omitted.
 My own correspondence with the gen. tleman in Montgomery County who has succeeded with alfalfa began about a year ago when had the privilege of rec tions from which he has so aply quoted Great credit is due him for his enterprise in growing alfalfa on considerable scale in a neighborhood where it had not before attracted attention. The prairie soil on which he grows 1t as described in his letters to me is the same as that on which Captain Webb at Demopolis has been making a success of alfalfa for a many readers of The Advertiser consid- erable areas of alfalfa have been sown in Sumter and other counties of West Alabama during the past few years. As showing the interest taken in this sub feet I will say that dozens of letters of inquiry about alfalfa have been answered by me during the past few weeks and that my correspondence on this subject has been considerable for several years
 Alfalfa is in my opinion destined to be come the principal foundation for stock raising in the prairie region of Alaba- ma. and indeed In most of the lime soils of the State With care 1t can be made to succeed on other soils also. Not only have we been making experiments on al falfa at Auburn. but there are now in progress under the direction of the writer fertilizer and other experiments in four other localities in the State, in Sumter, IIowndes, Perry and Baldwin Counties
 As giving some idea of the earnest ef- fort being made to learn the best soils for alfalfa and the best methods of growing it, I may say that our experi- fnents with alfalfa away from Auburn require the use of more than thirty plots. 1t is expected that sufficient data will be in hand for a conclusive bulletin on this subject at an early date.
 J. F. Duggar.