“Any time after the plant has attained a growth of four to six inches from the seed, but most commonly after the first year’s growth, there appears upon the upper side of the leaves small, irregular brownish spots, which enlarge to about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter and extend through the leaf to the under side, turning all parts brown. When many spots occur on the same leaf the whole leaf soon turns yellow and falls off. This falling of the leaves and the natural loss in vigor, due to the diseased condition before the falling, constitute its great damage. Frequent cutting of the crop materially prevents the disease.” In eastern states farmers report that there are frequent patches in their fields where the leaves turn red and the plant dies. The probable explanation of this trouble is “wet feet,” which alfalfa will not abide. Don’t expect to get a crop of alfalfa from a field in which water is near the surface. Drain it or use another field. ROOT ROT A disease peculiar to portions of the southern states is called “root rot,” and similar to the root rot found in cotton fields. The alfalfa dies in spots, these spots widening in circular form. This is a fungus that spreads only in summer. The only means of eradicating so far (reported by the Texas station) is the application of common salt and kerosene. It has not proven a serious annoyance. GOPHERS AND PRAIRIE DOGS Gophers and prairie dogs are great pests in some parts of the Middle West, and about the only successful means of combating them is poison. The state of Kansas has, probably more than any other, made a systematic effort to destroy its gophers and prairie dogs, by liberal appropriations and a field agent to supervise the work to be carried out under provisions of law by local officials. The injury done by the gophers consists chiefly in throwing up mounds of soil taken from the burrows and these greatly interfere with operating the mowing machine in harvesting. In the alfalfa fields there is also a noticeable thinning out of the plants, by reason of the cutting off of the roots. These root cuttings are stored in the burrows in considerable piles, and are used in cold weather by the gophers for food. It is claimed by some alfalfa growers that this process of thinning out the plants is a benefit rather than an injury to the field, but, says Prof. D. E. Lantz, the official formerly in charge of the Kansas work, “I have known fields where this thinning has continued until the crop did not half cover the ground at cutting time, and the fields were plowed up for the planting of other crops. The loss from gopher depredations to the alfalfa growers of Kansas during 1901 was probably fully one-tenth of the entire product, and had a money value of at least $500,000.”