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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1901)
fe f C " * 6 'Cbe Conservative. WHAT 1 KNOW ABOUT ALFALFA. BY II. D. WATSON. My acquaintance with alfalfa as a forage plant dates from the ' 70s , when residing in California. In the spring of 1889 I came into pos session of a twenty-acre field of strag gling alfalfa , two miles west of the city of Kearney , Buffalo county , Nebraska. It immediately attracted my attention , for the reason that I had supposed it would not thrive at this altitude with out irrigation. At that time the thought came to me , if this plant can be grown hero without irrigation , it affords the greatest opportunity for successful ag riculture I have ever known. I there fore resolved to watch it a little , which I did , very much to my advantage. During the following year , which the people of Kansas and Nebraska so well remember because of the terrible dryness - ness which prevailed over a large portion tion of these states , I succeeded in cut ting from this twenty acres of land nearly fifty tons of hay , in three cut tings , worth on the ground at that time , because of the scarcity of hay in this vicinity , over $600. Sowed Some Alfalfa Seed. I then determined to sow some alfalfa seed as soon as possible and watoh it from seeding. My first opportunity came in the fall of 1892-at which time I fitted the ground for twelve acres , and in the spring of 1898 , after thorough preparation , sowed the seed. The year of 1894 was a particularly disastrous one to the farmers of our section ( central Nebraska ) , not alone because of the drought , which almost equaled in sever ity that of 1890 , but because of a severe hail-storm , covering an area five miles wide and fifty miles long , that destroyed everything in its track , including the second cutting of my alfalfa. I cut , however , that year , from the twelve acres sown in 1898 , from thg first and third crops , forty tons of hay ; and from the twenty acres above referred to , from the first crop , twenty tons. After the hail-storm on July 8 the alfalfa on the twenty-acre piece made a growth of twenty-nine inches in thirty-one days , which was cut for seed , and yielded seventy bushels of seed , then worth on the market $4.50 per bushel , or $815. As hay was worth ten dollars per ton at that time , the products from thirty-two acres of alfalfa would have brought , had they been sold , over $900 , or about thirty dollars per acre. This result in time of drought so in terested me that in the fall of that year I ploughed 1,000 acres of land , and , af ter the most careful preparation , seeded it in the spring of 1895. A part of this acreage was sown with oats , using one bushel of oats to the acre , and the re mainder seeded without a nurse crop. Since then I have sown about 1,000 acres more , 800 of which is a good stand. This 1,800 acres of laud now set to alfalfa is in prime condition. In this connection it gives me pleasure to be able to say I have an additional 1,000 acres ploughed for seeding to alfalfa in 1899. Preparation of the Soil. Being asked to tell you "what I know about alfalfa , " it seems proper that I should first tell you how the soil is pre pared. The land is invariably ploughed in the fall , in such a manner as to leave no back or dead furrows , and as deeply as possible , using a subsoiler on all land the surface of which is more than fif teen feet above the sheet-water that , I am told , underlies the greater portion of Nebraska. The land is left in the furrow until all the frost is out of it in the spring. We then go on to it ( some times as early as February ) with a float an instrument made of oak plonk , with which you are all no doubt famil iar. Mine is sixteen feet long. With this , we thoroughly crush and level the ground , and follow immediately with a disk harrow , going over the laud as many times as may be necessary to per fectly pulverize it , with the wheels set straight in order to pack the soil as much as possible. I am so particular about the preparation of the soil that in some instances the land is disked five times. After disking , the land is dragged thoroughly , using four horses on a twenty-foot harrow at least once a week on the average , or after each ram- storm. This is done to prevent evapora tion of the moisture which is so neces sary to the growth of all vegetation , and especially this plant. Seed Per Acre. Based upon the result of many tests , I invariably use twenty pounds of seed to the acre , sowing with a Oahoon seed er , and sowing ten pounds each way ; that is , ten pounds to the acre is sown crossing the field in one direction from east to west , or north to south , accord ing to the wind then reseeding the laud with ten pounds to the acre , cross ing the field at right angles to the first sowing. I never sow oats or other grain with the alfalfa seed now , as my experience has been that the alfalfa plant requires all the moisture available in this section , and cannot afford to share this very necessary requisite to its growth with any nurse crop. The seed ing is completed between April 10 and May 15. As experiments , I have seeded every month in the year.and found that the best results followed early seeding , as the young plants then receive the benefits of the spring rains. About the middle of June , or sooner , if the weeds are large enough to shade the ground ( with us the sunflower and redroot are quite rank by that time ) , I mow the land , leaving the weeds to dry where they fall , as they make a very fine mulch for the alfalfa. In four or six weeks more , according to the growth of the weeds , I mow again , leaving the weeds on the ground as before. This has given me in two instances a crop of alfalfa in September of the year of seed ing , although generally I have got no hay crop until the second year. My first seeding was in alternate strips of eighty acres , one strip with one bushel of oats to the acre and the next strip without the oats. The stand on the strips sown without the oats is to day more than twice as heavy as on those sown with oats. Two or three times since I have seeded small areas with oats , and once with barley , only to find the same result. Third Crop for Seed. For raising our own seed , I now in variably use the third crop , as we have found , if we use the first , nature will require the whole season to mature it. The same reason prevents us from using the second ; whereas by using the third crop we are enabled to get two cuttings of hay. We always , however , calculate , where we intend to save the seed , to get the first two crops off by July 1 , which gives the third crop ample time to ma ture its seed before frost. We have also found that if we take the third crop for seed , instead of either of the other two , we have less foliage on the stems , al most the entire life of this crop going to the seed , which is a great advantage in threshing. In gathering the seed crop we use self-rakes. We generally thresh in winter , as we have more time during that season of the year , using a Birdsell huller. I urge the importance of great care in procuring seed , as otherwise consider able trouble may ensue. For instance , I bought some seed in the spring of 1896 wliich so liberally endowed my farm with Russian thistle and foxtail as to practically ruin the stand. I have not found the Russian thistle difficult to eradicate , as it cannot stand repeated mowing ; but foxtail , like alfalfathrives on mowing , so that if yon once get it into your field you had best plough it up and start overthat ; isplough up the en tire field and reseed it. The danger of dodder is so well understood that you need no warning in regard to that. Interesting Experience. Some of my alfalfa experience has been very interesting. You will re member that in the beginning I referred to the twenty-acre piece of straggling alfalfa. The field was straggling for this reason : The gentleman who sowed it in 1884 which makes the piece four teen years old being a banker and not a farmer , and knowing nothing about grasses , remarked to one of his neigh bors that he was "going to sow some grass seed and trust to God. " He con cluded that he would "learn all about grasses then. " Without special prep aration he sowed a mixture of alfalfa ,
