The Bad River news. [volume] (Philip, Stanley County, S.D.) 19??-1912, 1911-02-23
ARTICLE ON ALFALFA CULTURE
William James, of Dorchester,
Nebr., Gives Interesting In
formation on this
Subject

J, Alfalfa is the oldest forage plan
; known to man. It's not particular
about climatic differences or lacl
of moisture. Yielding fair croI
! with rainfall as low as fourteen
inches on the arid plains of Ne
braska, Kansas as we'll as the
Dakotas. 1t also fourishes in the
gulf states where sixty-five inches
of water falls in year. Crops OF
it are successfully grown in Mexico
where the elevation is 5000 feet
above the sea level and hourished
! with phenomenal success in Salton
basin, sixty-tive feet below the
ocean tides.
| Nebraska grows it on her hills
without blowing as does Nevada
with her sage-brush deserts. 1t
flourishes on the rich corn lands
and fertile valleys of Mississippi
and Missouri. Containing as it
does, from ten to eighteen Der cent
of protein, as much as there is in
modern process bran, we can readi.
ly determine its value by figuring
with the miller. If bran will cost
US fifteen dollars per ton; properly
cut, cured and stacked, alfalfa is
worth the same.
There is no place where alfalfa
will grow better or where it is
more appreciated than in the great
corn belt states. Corn and alfalfa
are each dependent on the other
to make balanced ration, by whose
use we safely defy all competition,
in the production of beef, pork,
mutton and poultry. We have no
plant with which to compare it,
either in its drought resisting abb
lity or in its tonnage of yield. Its
roots 60 down unchecked by hard
pan until they find moisture suffi-
ciens to immune it against drought
Its top goes to furnish forage for
our stock and lift the mortgage
from our farm. Alfalfa has come
to stay, each year it spreads it's
dominion into new fields, each
year there are planted thousands
of acres in new localities, with re-
suits which far exceed the highest
hope of the experimenter..
There are no lands on our farm
too valuable on which to plant it,
and none from which greater re-
turns will come for the care and
expense of harvesting; with ordi-
nary care and under ordinary con-
ditions it will yield from three to
four crops and from three to five
tons of hay per acre each year,
with which we can feed our horses
cattle and poultry. There are men
blinded by ignorance, prejudice,
or both, who say that it is not fit
hay for horses to eat, but the same
men will spend their hard earned
money for prepared stock foods
and high-priced condition powders.
We do not claim for it all of the
good and none of the bad, but we
do claim that for protein-pro-
ducinx plant it stands in a class of
its own without a peer, and with
out q rival worthy of the name.
Some may say that the time will
come when the alfalfa business
will be over done and that it will
be a drug on the market. There
is no more danger of having an
over production of alfalfa than
there is of corn or cotton. The
south wants alfalfa hay and the
east wants it bad, get busy; the
time will soon be here when hay
,, will be q staple shipping com.
modify as grain and live st ,ck. 1t
will pay to grow alfalfa for the
fertility it adds to the soil, even if
you never cut . crop of hay, or
use it once IS pasture; think Of
what it adds to the soil, according
to the learned chemist Of the de-
partment of agriculture, alfalfa at