| Show sheep do well on alfalfa pastures experiments result in acreage of the popular crop being doubled by 1311 W G kammlade assistant chief in shep sheep lIus husbandry bandry college of agriculture university ot of illinois service alfalfa to which illinois farmers are turning as a substitute for corn and some of their other biber surplus crops has proved in experiments to be one of the best pastures for the sheep and lambs on farms of the state E even ven with lamb valued galiled at only 5 cents a pound alfalfa pasture brought a gross return of 24 an acre in experiments peri ments conducted last year uy by the college the alfalfa maintained an average of seven ewes and twelve lambs an acre for days during the time the lambs were on pasture they gained enough weight to equal pounds of lamb an acre in addition the pasture maintained the ewes this is in line with experiments whip which b have been conducted at several different experiment stat lohs lobs during the past few years and which show chatan that an acre of alfalfa furnished more feed find and produced more pounds of lamb than any other crop largely as a result of experiments conducted by the college of agriculture alfalfa has become such a successful and popular crop in the state that the acreage of it has been tripled in the past 14 years in 1919 only acres were grown while last year the total was acres it was the experiment station of the agricultural college which first discovered and demonstrated that the cause for the general failure of alfalfa in illinois nois was the lack of suitable nodule bacteria in the soll soil since tecc then the institution has followed up with numerous experiments establishing superior Tarlet varieties les improved cultural methods and profitable utilization of the crop As a pasture for sheep and lambs alfalfa seems to be much less likely to cause bloat if the sheep are placed on it and not removed this Is the opposite of what Is commonly advised A satisfactory method to follow seems to be to let the sheep have a good fill of bluegrass or to feed them a large amount of palatable roughage before they are turned ion on the alfalfa and then leave them on continuously under this plan no cases of bloat have been reported in eap exp experimental eTi mental work when alfalfa was pastured this way last year in the illinois as experiments it seemed to be little if any more likely to cause bloat when wet than when dry |
