, 1905-05-22
DIRECTOR OF CHEYENNE DRY
LAND FARMING EXPERIMENTS
DISCUSSES THE SUBJECT.
Says That Good Crops of Excellent
Hay Can be Grown With Only
Such Moisture as Comes Natural
ly-Preparation of the Ground for
Seeding an Essential Point.

~
entirely wrong Alfalfa has beer
on dry land entirely without wa
ter, other than that which nature has
provided, but this is not generally
known. 1t has been II is growing on
land where the annual rainfall is about
II inches, SO you see he amount Of
this crop gets is not very
large.
THE main secret, if 1 may use such
an expression, is preparation of the
soil. There is no greater mistake
made by the farmer thar to suppose
he can get something for nothing.
Thorough preparation of the soil
but l believe that no class of men
mind work less than the farmers, pro
viding they see returns or feel that
they get paid Tor what they do. Thor
ough preparation of the soil and care
full work means, one might say in al
most every case, q magnificent stand
VI dllalld WHICH Win cdIc anu atleh
ton will give immense returns for
years, without very much trouble or
expense.
From actual experiments it has
been proved that alfalfa will do well on
dry land provided certain things are
done. First, take land hat has been
cropped, not new land, summer fall
low, or pillow in the 1all; pillow deep,
say seven to eight incnes, do not pillow
in the spring because you annot pack
your ground sufficiently well on spring
blowing. Should it be dry after you
SOY alfalfa on spring plowed land the
tender young plant often dies and the
farmers get disguised and lay the
blame las is often the case) on the
other fellow, and say that alfalfa
wont grow on his land. when as a mat
ter of fact he has made a mistake
through lack of knowledge. AS l have
said before, summer fallow kept clean
Of weed, or fall plowed land is best.
| might say necessary. In the spring
when this land is dry and warm, when
| say warm, | mean warm, not hot,
and you think the hard, killing frosts
are over, imagine you are going to
plant onions Il presume you all know
that onions require a very thorough
preparation of the soil to insure good
crops) harrow your land. l have found
that a good steel harrow or acme har-
row put any land in hne shape. Do
lot forget to use a clod masher when
necessary. Work till you have the
surface in a fine state, then drill about
IL pounds to the acre, set your drill to
SOW two inches deep. The seed being
very small does not need to be sowed
deeper. The ground being well prepar-
ed, your seed will, weather being
warm, start right off, and you will be
astonished at its growth. Having
sowed your seed, cross harrow, then
cur right after sowing, which some
times happens, harrow again and break
the surface and prevent a crust from
forming. In m places you may get
a crop the first year, but l would not
expect this. 1t usually does not get
high enough. About the end of May or
beginning Of June l would run the
mower over II u as close to the
ground as possible follow by other
moving if necessarily Leave this on
the ground as a mulch. By so doing
you help the alfalfa and destroy lots
of weeds. Then the following spring
when the surface of the ground is dry
don't work alfalfa land when it is
wet, l mean very wet, a moist surface
won't hurt) harrow, cut the surface up
thoroughly, and it cannot be impressed
too strongly upon your minds that he
future success of your alfalfa, in a
great measure, if not altogether, rests
with yourselves. One of the reasons
why alfalfa has failed, has been due to
neglect. The ground becomes hard
and packed, weeds grow and the alfal-
ia in vain tries to grow. To prevent
this happening you must thoroughly
harrow or cut up the surface of the
ground every spring. 1t would be well
to roll or plank often. By so doing
your hay will be cleaner. l recollect
one spring when we were busy that
We forgot to harrow M piece Of al
falfa out of many. The ground was
extra good and we expected quite a
crop. but unfortunately it was not
narrowed. When we found this out,
the ground was too hard to harrow SO
We let it go. Result, the crop was a
failure, while the rest of our alfalfa
which had been thoroughly narrowed,
was very good. You need not be
afraid Of hurting alfalfa. The more
thorough the work Is done after the
first year. the better the crop. In
other words, from and including the
second year, by surface cultivation try
and get rid of the alfalfa and the re-
suit will astonish you. You can get
1000 pounds or more per acre, lac
to the ground from one cut
One sowing lasts almost in def
This dry land alfalfa hay is
ar superior to irrigated alfalfa hay. !