While experts have been declaring that alfalfa would only grow in certain soils and in certain climates it has proven adaptability to nearly all climates and almost all soils. It produces with a rainfall as scant as 14 inches, and in the Gulf states flourishes with 65 inches. It gives crops at an elevation of 8000 feet above sea level, and in southern California it grows below sea level to a height of six feet or over, with nine cuttings a year, aggregating ten to twelve tons. An authenticated photograph in possession of the writer, reproduced opposite page 231, shows a wonderful alfalfa plant raised in the (irrigated) desert of southern California, sixty feet below sea level, that measured considerably more than ten feet in height. Satisfactory crops are raised, but on limited areas as yet, in Vermont and Florida. New York has grown it for over one hundred years in her clay and gravel; Nebraska grows it in her western sand hills without plowing, as does Nevada on her sagebrush desert. The depleted cotton soils of Alabama and rich corn lands of Illinois and Missouri each respond generously with profitable yields to the enterprising farmer, while its accumulated nitrogen and the sub-soiling it effects are making the rich land more valuable and giving back to the crop-worn the priceless elements of which it has been in successive generations despoiled by a conscienceless husbandry. Its introduction into Maryland was largely through the perseverance of Prof. W. T. L. Taliaferro of the agricultural college, who says: “The future for alfalfa for southern Maryland is bright, indeed, and with its general introduction will come a new era of prosperity for the ‘lower counties.’ Live stock farming will take the place of tobacco farming. The fertilizing elements of the soil will be concentrated at home instead of being shipped abroad. Larger crops will be raised. Soil improvement will take the place of soil exhaustion; worn-out farms will be restored to their original fertility.” THE ORACLES REFUTED