_Prof. William P. Brooks, Director Hatch experiment station._--Our experiments with alfalfa have been continued both upon our own grounds and those of a few selected farms in different parts of the state. We are bringing to bear upon these experiments information in regard to successful methods from every possible source. We find in all cases a distinct benefit from a heavy initial application of lime. We have used from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds per acre. We are enriching soils already naturally good by heavy applications both of manures and fertilizers, using materials which experience has proved best. We are also giving the soil a most thorough preparatory tillage. It has usually been fall-plowed, and in addition it is plowed in the spring, and repeatedly harrowed to destroy weeds which start in the early part of the season. We have tried inoculating the soil, both with earth obtained from a field in New York, where alfalfa is successfully grown and with the cultures sent out by the department of agriculture and prepared by private firms. We have not attained such degree of success as justifies us in recommending the crop. We have occasionally got a fair stand of alfalfa, but in all cases the winters prove more or less injurious. In the course of a few years the alfalfa is mostly crowded out by grasses and clovers. The alfalfa almost every year suffers from leaf spot, which tends to cut down the yield. We have found a very distinct benefit from the inoculation with earth from the New York alfalfa field. We have not found an equally distinct benefit to follow inoculation with any of the cultures; and, although we are not as yet ready to make a final report, it should be here remarked that the most careful experiments on the use of these cultures in sterilized soils, under conditions calculated to give accurate results, indicate that they have little, if any, value. In our various experiments alfalfa has been tried on a wide variety of soils. We have had a quarter of an acre field upon a coarse-textured soil upon a farm in this neighborhood where there is never any standing water within 50 to 60 feet of the surface. Even on this soil the alfalfa, although it did fairly well for a year, has been injured by successive winters, until it is at the present time almost ruined. In this connection I call attention further to the fact that D. S. Bliss of the department of agriculture, who has been making special efforts to promote the introduction of alfalfa into New England, and who has traveled extensively for the purpose of studying the results obtained, now speaks very discouragingly as to the outlook in general. In conclusion, while we are not inclined to discourage experiments with alfalfa, we do wish most emphatically to caution against engaging in these experiments upon an extended scale, for we feel that disappointment is almost inevitable. MICHIGAN