Variations in the foregoing tables would indicate that the analysis is likely to vary with the product of different soils and different cultivations. In spite of variations it may be readily seen that alfalfa with its high protein value makes a very effective and economical balance for corn for heavy feeding. When it is taken into consideration that this forage so rich in protein can be raised at home, and that its growing is at the same time enriching the soil, the conclusion is easy that alfalfa hay may profitably constitute a part of all the fattening operations; it is also clear that the economical way to market alfalfa is through the farm’s live stock. _CHAPTER XI._ Alfalfa in Beef-Making The cattle feeder is not much given to sentiment and cares less for the beauty of the purple flowers of the alfalfa than he does for the best method of converting those purple flowers and the accompanying foliage into marketable beef. An accepted but unwritten rule of cornfeeding is that 1000 pounds of grain with ordinary forage will produce 100 pounds of gain, under normal conditions. SOME FEEDING TESTS The Kansas station in a careful feeding test of 153 days produced 100 pounds of gain with 718 pounds of grain by using alfalfa hay for roughness. This test also gave the following table of gain in values, from the use of different feeds in the same given time: Corn and alfalfa hay $109.74 Corn and prairie hay 56.96 Corn and sorghum hay 27.09 Corn and oat straw 43.28 Barley and alfalfa hay 57.16 The Utah station after a feeding test published the statement that to produce 705.61 pounds of beef it required: Of alfalfa hay 7,182 pounds Of timothy hay 9,575 „ Of red clover hay 11,967 „ Of shredded corn fodder 10,083 „ [Illustration: =Kansas Farmer Viewing One of His Alfalfa Fields= Showing ten days’ growth after first cutting in 1907] [Illustration: Harvesting Alfalfa in Ohio] At this station steers made a most rapid gain when fed upon early cut alfalfa hay, either with or without an accompanying ration of grain. “By early cut hay was meant hay cut just before bloom. The gain upon this early cut alfalfa hay was one-third more than that upon hay cut when in full bloom or later.” The Utah station also reports a cattle feeding test (Bul. No. 61) in which 100 pounds of gain from feeding alfalfa hay cost $3.76; from timothy, $4.71, and from corn fodder, $6.21. At the Nebraska station Prof. Howard R. Smith (Buls. 85 and 90) fed 50 yearling and 50 two-year-old grade steers in lots of ten for six months, each lot of each fifty having rations different from the others, and the table herewith shows the average cost per pound of gain made by each steer of each lot of yearlings: