The morning journal-courier., 1907-12-19
AN ALFALFA KING
A Texas Ranchman Whose h. come Exceeds $100,O00
 a Year.
AND SOME MORE IN SIGHT
How q Practicing Lawyer Became a Practicing and Successful
 Farmer.

An annual income of more than $loO,0oo-more than twice the sal ary paid the President of the United States-represents the profits of one man from a Texas farm This forum ate asriculturist is R. E. Smith of sherman. He is known as "the Alfalfa King" for all of his wealth comes from a ranch of 1,400 acres, upon which alfalfa only is grown.
 MT. Smith has developed from a practicing lawyer to the greatest all falfa grower in the world in q period of thirteen years. He began his first experiment of planting alfalfa in 1894. At that time there was little known of this plant in Texas. He sowed five acres with the seed. It thrived so we'll that he met with a difficul problem in keep ing 1t cut It was new thing to him and afforded him an opportunity to begin the study of that particular branch of agriculture with a close ness of application that in a few years caused him to be known the country over as an authority upon the sub ject of alfalfa growing The growing and harvesting of the crop were not the only things to be studied and in vestigated. He conducted a long series of experiments of the best methods of feeding and fattening stock upon it.. He made many new discoveries which have been of the greatest value in utilizing the product and his income from the hogs and other livestock which feed upon it amounts to many thousands of dollars annually in addi- tioh%to the enormous sum which the alfalfa crop directly brings him.
 When the first five acres enlightened Mir, Smith as to the possibilities of alfalfa he began to increase the acre. age year by year. even when he reached the point when he had one hundred acres in the feed stuff he was looked upon as the king of alfalfa growers in the Southwest, That was a number of years ago and since then many farms in the country have had larg- CT acreage of alfalfa than that. Two years ago he had increased his acre. age to 1000 acres and his income for that year was $7S,000 Since then 400 more acres have been added. MT. Smith has placed no limit upon the acreage that he may ultimately reach. He has big farm and there are sev- eral hundreds acres still available for Alfalfa.
 The marvellous thing about MT. Smiths alfalfa farm is that it is a dry land proposition, The crop is grown without Irrigation. Practically all of the other alfalfa that is grown in the Southwest is by means of irriga- ton, By the cultiyating methods used by Mir. Smith he is able to obtain as many cuttings and as large a yield as ] usually obtains upon the irrigated farms. The old theory that alfalfa will thrive only on lowlands is disproved by MT. Smith. It is growing in the 5 valley and upon the hills upon his ! farm. The highest hills in this part X of Texas are in this 1,400 acre alfalfa field. The crop which grows upon their Ilsummits is equal t0 that which grows in the valleys. The plant enriches tho sasoil plarvelously and after the first |lplanting it is not long until the most Babarren spots are thickly carpeted nne Isof the bills in the big alfalfa field is Escalled Mollat Nebo, and rom its sum J efn't every part of the l,400 acres can Egbe plainly seen.
 # "1'o r'c this is the most enticing Aemincnce l ever beheld, not ven ev- 5cepting the magnificent mountain &scenery of Colorado or of the Shenar-