The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-01-21
ALFA FA
And Its Relation to Agriculture in the
Semi-Arid Region.
CONTINUED from Page -

a fair average annual yield. Up &c
the present time North Dakota Grimm
alfalfa seed has enjoyed a handsome
premium in price but to play safe let
us name the price of just ordinary
southern grown seed $500 pei
bushel for these two bushels we can
grow. That makes a clear profit of
$4,000 per acre for every acre we care
to grow-and that it pretty nearly as
good as as the average annual profit
on wheat! And then, seed grown in
Valley County, Montana recently sold
in New York and Michigan for $4,000
err cwt. or $500 per bushel.
1t is here with seed production that
the short pendulum men get in another
"holler" of over-production. With all
the millions of acres of alfalfa in the
United States there is yet need to i'm
port from Mediterranean countries
more than one-ffth of all the seed
sown within our borders. This is
what the United States Department of
agriculture has to say of this imported
seed:
Commercial Turkestan alfalfa seed
is the cheapest seed on the European
market, but sold by American seeds
men at a higher price than domestic
seed: it is particularly unsuited to the
humid eastern portion of the United
States; it is mixed with a large assert
ment of foul and noxious weed seeds;
it is not as hardy as other strains. re-
covers slowly after cutting, is of in
ferior hay yielding quality and is an
extremely poor seed producer.
What an arraignment! Can you
beat it! And yet there are men who
say we have no need of producing alf-
alta seed, that we can import it cheap
err from Europe. These men are as
cheap as is that seed.
Now listen to what the same auth
ority says of the Grimm alfalfa:
Extensive experiments conducted
show conclusively that Grimm is thus
far the most winter-hardy strain
known. The very qualities that go for
hardness go also for drouth-resistance
so that the Grimm is superior in this
respect. No other strain recover
more quickly after cutting. 1t is n
of the heaviest hay yielders in north
ern sections and possibly the best
seed producer known.
This is the seed we grow. This is
the seed we will grow in competition
against the world. The day is not
far distant when the nitrate beds of
Chill will have become exhausted, but
before that day comes alfalfa will
have come into it's own. There will
not be a farm in this Union upon which
Il will not be growing. Our American
farmers have already become purse
weary buying nitrates and are fast
putting the alfalfa plant to work. A
deterrent factor has been the very
great number of failures in the east
to get alfalfa started, due largely to
the use of unsuitable seed such as is
imported and foisted upon them by I'M
thinking or bv INSCRIPTIONS seedsmen.
By reason of the climatic conditions
the freezing and thawing: the heav-
ing and pulling action of the soils in
all our eastern and central states
thew require an alfalfa exceptionally
we'll developed in root habit. This
is Just what the imported alfalfas have
not-just what northern grown Grimm
has. A vast territory is beginning
to look to the Dakotas and Montana
for it's alfalfa seed.
A Word About Seed Prices.
am not of those who think
it is desirable that the price of our
northern Grimm seed should be main
tanned at the high level it has up to the
present held. Just as soon as We
"a offer this seed in carload lots at
a reasonable price (the eastern and
southern farmers consider so cents a
pound for alfalfa seed unreasonable
we will find an all too ready market
for all we can produce. l can see the
time when Dakota and Montana alfalfa
will sow the United States with it's
super-hardy seed that has the vigor
and stamina which only u north
west induces.
In Conclusion.
Our soils are vet fertile-let us
keep them so by growing livestock and
alfalfa.
Our rainfall is defcient-let US make
better use of that which does fall by
making our lands more spongy, full
of humus, by growing alfalfa.
Our grass-fed steers have ALWAYS
been good-let us make them better
by growing alfalfa.
Our hogs are beginning to supply
the market-let us put them there in
'Hc NcSI shape AT the least cost by
growing corr and alfalfa.
Our whole livestock industry is zap
idly increasing-let us grow the best
feed in the forld by growing alfalfa.
All feeds are going higher and
higher-let us keep down the cost of
production by growing the most
cheaply produced of all feeds, alfalfa.
The world is stretching out it's hands
for a super-hardy alfalfa-let US place
III them our northern grown Grimm
alfalfa.
And this is just a glimpse of the
possibilities of alfalfa culture for us.
Alfalfa, n of the Oldest crops grown
by mankind has just become for us one
OF the newest. Leaving its original
home in the irrigated valley of the
Euphrates 20 centuries ago on that
fearful night when in Babylon the
fateful hand wrote the sentence of a
mighty nation. alfalfa has iourneved
1000 miles to its newest home amid
this virile people of our northwest.
AND hope some day to see erected
here a great temple of agriculture and
upon its walls may there be written
not Meme but livestock, not tekel but
corn, not Upharsin but ALFALFA.
W hon Won - D.