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Show ALFALFA ON DRY FARM Row Cultivation Will Have Great Place. 6toollng Habit Is of Extreme Importance Im-portance to Dry Farmer Grower Grow-er Can Thin Out Drills as Beets Are Thinned. It Is doubtful If tho system of sowing sow-ing alfalfa In rows would be a success In the middle states. 1 doubt It, as I do not believe sufficiently thorough cultivation could be maintained In a humid climate to keep out the grasses. That row cultivation will have a great place In dry farming is beyond question, for hay as well as for seed production. Where ordinary seeding is practiced thero are usually too many plants and they often exhaust ex-haust the entire avallab'e moisture, resulting In a general death Instead of the survival of the fittest, w rites L. Ofrflvy In the breeder's (laetto. The jlelda of hay on dry and Irrigated lands, so far as experiments have been tried, have been greater when drilled in rows than where the plants occupied the whole field. With the Spanish or straight growing kind the hay Is coarse, but with Grimm and varieties having somewhat the same stoollng habit this drawback does not exist. This stoollng habit Is of extreme Importance to the dry farmer, as will be easily seen If we consider what usually happens to alfalfa. There Is as a rule a fair amount of precipitation precipita-tion In the spring or an amount of stored water In the soil In June. All the little plants start at once and flourish for awhile, and then as the little tap roots reach down tLrough the cultivated land and engage in a desperate struggle to pierce tho plow-sole plow-sole and harder uncultivated substances, sub-stances, the heat, grasshoppers and ther adverse conditions check plant growth on top. On the other hand, alfalfa planted In rows 24 Inches apart has three times the moisture to draw on even If the drills ore continuous. If the grower desires he can thin the drills as beets are thinned and thus wake, practically certain of a sufTlclent supply of moisture except In a very abnormal season. He can with harrow, har-row, weeder or cultivator cheaply retain re-tain a soli mulch to prevent evaporation evapora-tion In other words, he can do all for alfalfa that he can for any other cultivated cul-tivated crop. This will amount to a great deal more than It does with a big plant tike corn, producing a heavy tonnage and calling for lots of moisture for transpiration. If the alfalfa plants are thinned to 24 Inches they can almost be made to grow, and that is what the dry farmer farm-er has to do make plants succeed where conditions are at any rate not normal even if not entirely adverse. Adverse they are if he f erslsti In farming as If they were normal, and he must come to see this If he Is to llicceed. Given alfalfa with a stoollng habit, the plant can first be established and Its roots reach deep permanent moisture mois-ture before It produces a crop of any magnitude. Once firmly established. It will no doubt, like all other plants that have enough room, begin to stool out and do business to the limit of Its capacity. . In dry seasons for a time at least the stools will not bo eo well established, but they will flrt succumb, leaving the main part of the plant still in possession. The same methods will apply equally equal-ly to tho Spanish or non-stoollng varieties va-rieties and will be a great success for seed, but the hay will be coarser. They can never fill the ground with a multiplicity of shoots as the others, but must coarsen their branches and stems at the expense of the leaf bearing properties of the plant. This disadvantage can bo largely overcome by early cutting. As It will be a long time before there Is a sufficient supply sup-ply of seed of other kinds on the market, row cultivation of the kinds available should be begun and pushed at once In the dry region. |