The Book of Alfalfa: History, Cultivation and Merits: Its Uses as a Forage and FertilizerCoburn, F. D. (Foster Dwight)
History
The Book of Alfalfa: History, Cultivation and Merits: Its Uses as a Forage and Fertilizer
Coburn, F. D. (Foster Dwight)
Alfalfa
A Harlan county, Nebraska, farmer reports an income of $774 in one year
from seed and hay from six acres.
Scott Bros., of Pottawatomie county, Kansas, report to the author as
follows concerning their returns from a twelve-acre field in one year:
2 hay crops, 30 tons at $12 $360
105 bushels of seed at $6 630
Straw 50
Fourth cutting, 12 tons at $12 144
------
Total, one year’s return $1,184
A Buffalo county, Nebraska, farmer sold from a year’s growth on 22
acres, hay worth $328.12, seed $1000, and straw $150.
A Montgomery county, Kansas, farmer reports to the author a return of
$106 per acre in one year from hay, seed and straw.
Another report was sent in 1904 from southern Kansas, of five cuttings,
making 8¹⁄₂ tons per acre, which sold at $5 per ton in the field.
SOME REPORTS OF YIELDS
A farmer of Harvey county, Kansas, reported in 1903 two hay crops and
one seed crop, the hay, seed and straw returning more than $50 per acre
from a field that two years before had failed to yield enough corn to
justify its gathering.
Sixteen acres in Reno county, Kansas, are reported to have pastured in
1904 four hundred pigs and yielded one cutting of hay of over 16 tons.
An alfalfa field of eleven acres in Washington, on the bank of the
Columbia river, under irrigation, produced in 1901 over 100 tons of hay.
Former Governor W. D. Hoard, of Wisconsin, reports from three-fifths of
an acre on his farm in the southern part of the state, four cuttings in
one season, yielding 5.7 tons of hay.
Alva Langston, of Henry county, Indiana, sowed five acres of alfalfa May
20th, and harvested nearly 1¹⁄₂ tons of hay per acre August 25th
following, and about the same quantity September 20th to 25th. This was
on upland, thirty or more years in cultivation. The alfalfa was clipped
twice before the cutting for hay.
In 1902 F. S. Kirk of Garfield county, Oklahoma, sowed a field near a
creek, but about 25 feet above water, with thirty to thirty-five pounds
of alfalfa seed per acre, broadcast. The soil, which he calls “high
bottom,” was a dark brown and contained considerable sand. For two years
no attention was given the alfalfa except harvesting from it three crops
the second year and four the third year. In 1905 he harvested from ten
acres nine cuttings, estimated to weigh fully one and one-half tons
each, per acre. The longest time between any two cuttings was twenty-two
days, and the shortest fourteen days. During the season of 1904 seven
cuttings were made and the field was gone over with a disk harrow early
each time after removing the hay from the field. It was possible to cut
another growth of 8 to 12 inches, had he not preferred to use it as
pasturage for stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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