Show keeping the alfalfa field productive although alfalfa Is our main forage crop very little work lias has been done in its ats improvement said pro ro fessor Il this has probably probable been because even when left alone or abused as compared with other crops it still brodu produced eu more and better feed than any other forage cr crop op ean an bo be made and yields iacre pea by effort and expense the utah experiment station after checking up an on alfalfa fields in all parts of 0 utah bitah fo tor a num number berof of years tells telli u us s that on the average yield and quality of affair produced per acre begins to decrease after the fifth or sixth year and continues gradually to decrease due to weeds disease insects and lark lack of soil fertility the greatest yields on an high quality hay come the third fourth fifth and probably to te sixth years this being true alfalfa should be fitted into regular six year crop rotation system plowing up tour four or five acres of the oldest alfalfa each year and planting each year the same numb or er of acres of new aI alfalfa falfa with the barley or or oat crop alfalfa responds well to an application of manure at least once during the six years the alfalfa field should be mai lured either in the fall during the winter or er in the spring this should ho be followed in the spring by light harrow ng or or by to te use oa of a brush dra drag quilt to produce the best quilty hay bay the alfalfa should be cut from one tenth to one fifth in bloom the rake should follow the mower as soon ll 11 as the alfalfa has haa slightly wilted it dushl push rake is used the hay bay is allowed tol to cure in the windrow it if Is Is to be hauled to the stack in a rack the hay should be cocked and allowed to cure in the cock on the most utah farms about aboudi halt half of the cultivated area ot of thel the farm should be in alfalfa it if there are sixty acres of cultivated land on the farm thirty acres should be in alfalfa about ten tea acres to grain mostly barley baut ten acres to cultivated and cash crops about eight acres to pasture and two acres bogar to garden home orchard and farmstead livestock in sufficient numbers and of as high quality as aa possible should bg be maintained mantal manta ned ined so that no hay bay or grain need to be sold bold but all of it fed to live stock and marketed either bither as livestock products it a cash crop can be grown and one should he be where possible all well and good we are just that much farther ahead our cropping system should provide teed feed for our livestock food for tho the farm family and it if possible a cash crop |