Transcriber’s Notes
Texts printed in italics and bold face have been transcribed between
_underscores_ and =equal signs= respectively. Small capitals have been
replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
[Illustration: _F. D. Coburn_
It is the pleasure of the publishers to present to those who are
interested in alfalfa, the man who declined an appointment as United
States Senator, that he might continue to direct the affairs of the
Kansas State Board of Agriculture in general and of farmers in
particular.--Orange Judd Company.]
The Book of Alfalfa
HISTORY, CULTIVATION AND MERITS.
ITS USES AS A FORAGE
AND FERTILIZER.
[Illustration]
* * * * _Spanish clover, such as has
Usurped the Occident and dwells
On Sacramento’s sundown hills,
And all the verdant valley fills
With fragrance sweet and delicate
As wooing breath of woman is._
--_Joaquin Miller_.
_By_ F. D. COBURN
Secretary Kansas Department of Agriculture.
Illustrated
1912
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
New York
Copyright, 1906 by
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
New Revised Edition Copyrighted 1907 by
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the U. S. A._
[Illustration: THERE ARE SOME SILENT SUBSOILERS THAT DO THEIR WORK WITH
EASE, AND IN THEIR WAY, MORE EFFECTUALLY THAN ANY TEAM OR PLOW EVER
HITCHED. THE CLOVER PLANT IS RIGHTEOUSLY FAMED AS ONE OF THESE, BUT
ALFALFA IS ITS SUPERIOR. ITS ROOTS WORK, SUNDAY AS WELL AS SATURDAY,
NIGHT AND DAY; THEY STRIKE 5, 10, 15 OR 20 FEET DEEP, MAKING INNUMERABLE
PERFORATIONS, WHILE STORING UP NITROGEN, AND WHEN THESE ROOTS DECAY THEY
LEAVE NOT ONLY A GENEROUS SUPPLY OF FERTILITY FOR ANY DESIRED CROP, BUT
MILLIONS OF OPENINGS INTO WHICH THE AIR AND RAIN OF HEAVEN FIND THEIR
WAY, AND HELP TO CONSTITUTE AN UNFAILING RESERVOIR OF WEALTH, UPON WHICH
THE HUSBANDMAN CAN DRAW WITH LITTLE FEAR OF PROTEST OR OVERDRAFTS.]
“Its long, branching roots penetrate far down, push and crowd the
earth this way and that, and thus constitute a gigantic subsoiler.
These become an immense magazine of fertility. As soon as cut, they
begin to decay and liberate the vast reservoir of fertilizing matter
below the plow, to be drawn upon by other crops for years to come.”
The Author’s Foreword
This volume, however strong its statements in favor of alfalfa may
appear to those unacquainted with that plant’s productivity and
beneficence, is by no means presented as an argument that everyone
should raise alfalfa. It is intended rather as a conservative setting
forth of what others have found alfalfa to be and do under wide
variations of soil, climate, condition and locality; of its
characteristics and uses; the most approved methods of its raising and
utilization, and the estimates of it by those who have known it most
intimately and longest as a farm forage crop and a restorer and
renovator of the soil.
The author believes in alfalfa; he believes in it for the big farmer as
a profit-bringer in the form of hay, or condensed into beef, pork,
mutton, or products of the cow; but he has a still more abiding faith in
it as a mainstay of the small farmer; for feed for all his live stock
and for maintaining the fertility of the soil.
To avoid the appearance of both special pleading and exaggeration the
statements have been guarded, and many of a laudatory nature, which
fully authenticated facts seemed to justify, have been omitted, as
neither the author nor the publishers have desire or willingness to
extol unduly a commodity so little needing it as that of which the
volume treats. Alfalfa’s strongest commendations are invariably from
those who know it best; none are incredulous who know it well, and none
have grown it but wished their acreage increased.
F. D. COBURN.
Topeka, Kansas.
1906
Introductory
BY
Former Governor W. D. Hoard, of Wisconsin
_Editor Hoard’s Dairyman_
I am exceedingly gratified by the preparation and publication of a new
and larger work devoted to the subject of Alfalfa. The earlier effort by
Mr. Coburn upon the same subject was in many respects a classic, and I
am sure farmers everywhere will now hail with joy the advent of a
kindred work by him, still more complete.
It is strange, this late awakening all over the Union and in Canada to
the feeding value and possibilities of this marvelous plant. Again, it
is wonderful to me that within a few years farmers everywhere are being
compelled to revise their judgment as to their chances of success with
it. A large correspondence on this subject comes to me from every state
in the Union and the provinces of Canada, and success is being had in
the growing of alfalfa where not more than three years ago it was deemed
impossible to make it live. Of course the question of growing alfalfa
contains a thousand or more chances for good or poor judgment. Men who
are not too conceited, too ignorant or too stubborn to learn by reading
other men’s experience will go ahead rapidly and soon make a success of
it.
I believe this alfalfa movement is the most important agricultural event
of the century. For the production of beef, mutton and milk, the
combination of corn ensilage and rightly cured alfalfa hay, furnishes
almost a perfect ration, requiring but a small addition of grain feed.
Both of these can be cheaply and easily produced on nearly every farm in
the land. In my herd of nearly fifty registered and grade Guernsey cows
these feeds constitute the sheet anchor of my dairy work.
No one more literally abets the growth of two blades of grass where one
grew before than he who effectively urges the cultivation of alfalfa
upon those who are strangers to it, and no one is more truly working for
the benefit of agriculture, the basis of all prosperity, than he who
proclaims its excellence as the foremost forage.
_Hoard’s Dairyman_ will do all in its power to enhance the circulation
and reading of such a book as Mr. Coburn has made.
W. D. HOARD.
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
1906
Publisher’s Announcement
All the plates of the “Book of Alfalfa” were destroyed in the disastrous
fire that consumed our mechanical department January 28, 1907. We have
taken advantage of this emergency and present the present volume in a
new and revised edition, with the additional material furnished by the
author.
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY.
Table of Contents
Page
The Author’s Foreword iv
Introductory v
CHAPTER I
History, Description, Varieties and Habits 1