Mrs. Grundy. (Tracy City, Tenn.) 1903-1930, 1913-09-25
ALFALFA IN The SOUTH
N. c. & St. L. Ry. Issues a
Valuable Publication.

Nashville, Chattanooga q st.
Louis Railway, through it's In
dustrial Branch, has compiled
and published a valuable pamph-
let on alfalfa growing in the
Middle South the booklet is writ
ten to apply in particular to con-
dltIons in that section of the
South traversed by the Lines of
that Company, and the methods
of handling employed by the most
successful Swiss and German
growers of the Belvidere Com
munity of Franklin County, Ten
nessee, are comprehensively set
forth and recommended to pros
pective growers.
A brief history of alfalfa pro-
duction ln1the United States is
given, showing that the plant
was introduced in California by
fortune adventures from the
Chilian coast of South America
during the gold excitement in
that state in the early '50's.
Probably but few citizens of
the state of Tennessee have any
knowledge of the extent of the
area of successful alfalfa produc-
tion in the Swiss and German
communities of Belvidere sec.
ton of Franklin County. Short
ly after the close Of the late civil
war a colony of Swiss and Ger
man farmers emigrated from a
western state and purchased
farms in the most devastated and
abandoned districts, most of
which had actually grown over
with brush and sage grass. The
prices paid for these lands were
ridiculously low, ranging from
$40 to SIS per acre. By applying
the proverbial practical and in.
telligent methods of tilling the
soil for which those agricultural
races are celebrated, the farms
taken over by the German colo.
nists were ultimately brought to
a reasonably profitable state of
cultivation. In 1901, or twelve
years ago, John Kaserinan, the
pioneer and leader of the colo.
nists, conceived the opinion that
the red clay soils of the highland
rim would produce alfalfa. His
farm of several hundred acres
was typically representative OF
those red lands, and he success.
fully experimental with five
acres. That experiment was
probably the introduction of al.
falfa growing in Tennessee and
that section of the south travers
ed by the Nashville, Chattanooga
& st. Louis Railway. Indeed
it is doubtful if 1t had beer
grown in any of the agriculture
communities of the south prior
to that time, as it was not suffici
emily we'll known as far east al
Iowa to be referred to In the croI
reports of that state before 1905
Three years later, John Kurt
another German settler in the
| DOL NiuSl0 o6CUlUu VI l. IduhllI
county, sowed twenty-five acre.
and harvested a large yield
Since that time alfalfa acreage
in that and adjacent communitiet
have been steadily increasing or
the farms of both the foreign ele
ment and on those of the native
operators as we'll. The alfalfa
crop is now regarded in Franklin
county as the surest and mos
profitable crop grown wheA prop
erly handled, the average yiel(
being above four tons per acre
and the producers realizing from
$1S to $25 per ton. 1t is conf
IDENTIFY believed and so stated By
successful growers of alfalfa il
those communities that the frs
crop will pay for the land rpoi
which 1t is grown, including thu
cost of producing it and figure
are not wanting to prove the as