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Show ALFALFANOTKNOWN Place for Crop in Northwestern States Not Understood. Now Ascertained That It Can Be Grown With Reasonable Degree De-gree of Profit In Northwestern North-western States. The place for alfalfa in the northwestern north-western states Is not well understood, says Dakota Farmer. Until recently the belief was almost universal that it could not be grown in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and on the bench laud of the mountain states with any considerable con-siderable degree of certainty or profit. It is now being ascertained that it may be grown satisfactorily on much of the land in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Da-kotas. It is also being ascertained that it can be successfully grown on the bench lands of the northwestern mountain states. While alfalfa can be grown In many areas of the eastern Dakotas and in Minnesota, it will never occupy so Important a place relatively as In areas farther west. This arises from the fact, first, that It is less needed as a forage crop in the areas first named, and second, because In these It is more likely to be injured by the winter season. This does not mean that It Is much liable to be destroyed by the winter, but It does mean that It will in some Instances be thus injured in-jured by the severity of the cold when suddenly exposed by the removal re-moval of the snow. Such winter killing kill-ing is very infrequent in areas farther west. In the areas first named clover In several of Us varieties is a sure crop, and where it is. It is probably more valuable than alfalfa, all things considered. con-sidered. It comes much more frequently fre-quently Into the rotation, and where two crops of common red clover can be grown in succession in one season, the yield will probably be as much n from two cuttings of alfalfa. In such instances the value of the alfalfa Is largely dependent on the superior continuity con-tinuity in its growth. The clover lands are also more easily broken than the alfalfa lands when this may be desired. The fact remains, nevertheless, that the western half of both Dakotas and the bench lands of Montana. Wyoming Wyom-ing and other mountain states, have much less adaptation to the growing of clover, than to the growing of alfalfa. al-falfa. The former calls for more moisture to grow them at their best than the latter. The aim should be, therefore, to make the alfalfa plant one of the chief forage crops that will be grown In all these areas. Too much must not be expected from the alfalfa. During many seasons there will be only one cutting. During other seasons there may be two. It was thought at one time that the attempt to grow alfalfa was hopeless under the conditions that are now being be-ing considered. It was thought that these areas were too cold and too dry. It is now being ascertained that It Is not too cold. The people of the Canadian Cana-dian northwest are now beginning to get busy growing this plant. It is also being found that alfalfa can bo established on land where the normal rainfall runs between 12 and IE Inches per year. These results are being accomplished with such alfalfas alfal-fas as we have. Others are being introduced which may prove more resistant re-sistant to cold and drought than the varieties we now have. Professor Hansen of the South Dakota experiment experi-ment station comes to us with the tidings that in Rusia, alfalfa is successfully suc-cessfully grown In some of Its varieties va-rieties farther north and under more severe conditions than are found In these northwestern states. |