The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1916-08-31
NOW IS THE TIME FOR
PLANTING ALFALFA
BY R. w. Allen in Hermiston Herald.

By r. w. Allen in Hermiston Herald.
! From now until September Is, an
lticipating that weather conditions
will be normal, is the best time of the
year to SOW alfalfa. 1t might be car
ried on until the first of October, or
even later some years without loss of
the new plants by freezing, but no
loss has occurred by frost during the
past seven years from seed sown be-
fore September Is provided the soil
was kept moist.
There are several advantages in
sowing alfalfa at this season of the
year. The most important is the small
amount of care that is necessary to
grow the little plants as compared
with planting in the spring when days
are longer and the weather warmer.
There is less wind now than in the
spring. which causes much less dan
ger of loss from this cause. Alfalfa
sown now will make considerable
growth before winter and starts off
readily in the spring making much
stronger growth than would be gotten
from spring sown fields.
Extreme care should be taken to
have the land we'll prepared by thor
ough grading. and by putting on
straw to prevent erosion by the wind,
which readily destroys the young
plants and renders the land unlevel
making it difficult to irrigate prop
erly.
As a result of careful study and
numerous trials in methods of hand
ling water on the characteristic soils
of this region which have been in pro-
gress at the Experiment Station dur
ing the past eight years it has been
found that the new border system of
irrigation has many advantages over
others that are in more or less gener-
al use. Land that is not rough in
topography is easily prepared for this
system of handling. 1t causes mini
mum of obstruction to field opera
tions of harvesting and effects great
saving of time and water in irrigat-
ing. In the irrigation plats on the
Experiment Station land is being ef-
fectively irrigated by this system with
2 to 4 inches of water at an applica-
ton and with very little labor in at
tending to it. Irrigation with so small
an amount of water can only be done
where the land is prepared perfectly
This strongly emphasizes what has
been found repeatedly in farm oper-
ations, namely that in the end the
cheapest way to prepare land for irri-
CATION is to do the work thoroughly in
the beginning.
Details of preparing land to get
best results, and to get successful
stand of alfalfa will gladly be given
by the staff of the experiment Station,
or by Paul S. Jones, who is prepared
Ito personally visit tracts of land being
prepared FOR crops ana assist Ill lay
ing out bitches and to recommend the
best methods of preparing the land.
The run of salmon in the Rogue
river this year is the greatest ever
known in the history of the place. R..
l.. Macceay who was here yesterday
from Wedderburn says that his con-
cern, the Wedderburn trading COM
pany will have it's record pack. The
Icompany has raised the price of fish.
1.-The fishermen now get S1.25 each
for salmon when they used the COM
pany's nets and $3.50 each when they
urnished their own nets. The fishing
season closes August 25 and opens
again on September 1O,--Eugene
Register.