The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-10

New York. Dec. 9.-Uncle Sam Is the greatest haymaker in the world, and this year 1t is estimated that he has harvested 64,500,000 tons, a crop worth over half billion dollars. The aver age city man who thinks of the term ''crops" vaguely as referring to wheat and corn will doubtless be astonished at these figures on something that he usually considers eff he considers it at alb as mere breakfast food for ani- mals. And though all hay looks alike to the uninitiated, there are many diff ferent kinds \of grasses which are grouped under the generic term. The principal ones. of course, are timothy and clover in the East and alfalfa in the West.
 Hay is, moreover, the most demo- cratic of all of our crop productions. Every farmer had a hand in swelling the vast total of the crop. There are no vast areas of land devoted exclu- sively to hay-raising, such as the mon- ster wheat fields of South Dakota, or the huge corn fields of Nebraska and Kansas. Instead every farmer has his own small field, where he grows usu- ally very little more than will carry his own stock though the winter. How ever, when all of these small fields are added together. the result is impressive The average area of land used for the production of hay during the years from 1900 to 1904 was 39,653,197 acres. Had the nations hay fields been in- cluded in one gigantic farm. 1t would have been as big as the States of New York and Massachusetts with half Of Connecticut thrown in. The average yield from the 39,0O0,000 acres of hay land has been 56,51.265 tons year. considerably less than this years great crop.
 Nearly everyone knows how the tim othy, and clover of the East is grown, cut and marketed, but the raising Of alfalfa in the far West Is to the average Fastener an unknown process. What alfalfa has done and is doing for the West can hardly be estimated. With put 1t the stock-raising industry, which is the chief occupation of the Vest would be fearfu1ly handicapped.
 In the early days. when all the range was free, and the rich. nourishing buf- falo-grass grew knee-high, there was no need to have supply of hay on hand to winter the stock, as the ami maIs could rustic" enough off the range to get through the winter months in good shape. But as the settlers poured in, and took up homesttads of 16O acres, the range became more and more restricted, the supply or bunaIo- grass became scantier ana scantler, and soon the Stock growers louhu ehae to winter their stock, especially sheep, they must have on hand large amount of hay. Various grasses were tried. but alfalfa, a grass introduced from Asia into California, was found to pc the best for all purposes. and now is the mainstay of the sheep and cattle in all of the Rocky Mountain States.
 To produce alfalfa you must irrf- gate Now and then small crop can be raised without the help of the irri- gation ditch, but the crop Is so uncer- tain and so unsatisfactory that practi- caIly no one in the West today attempts 10 raise alfalfa without first irrigating. Given water though, and the rest is easy. The farmer taps stream with his main ditch, which is laid out along the side of a more or less precipitous hill. From the main ditch run what are called 'laterals," little ditches about a foot deep and a foot and a half wide. When the ground Is plowed and the seed safely tucked away in the basin of Mother Earth. the late rals" are filled to overfiowing from the