Alfalfa is to the irrigated Morrill county what the cocoanut palm is to the tropics -- food and drink and raiment. There are crops paying more to the acre, there are crops requiring less labor, there are crops requiring less time to give return, but there is net another crop that will stand by the farmer year in and year out, giving him compound interest on the labor invested, and returning the soil doubly enriched like alfalfa. Alfalfa is sowed either spring or fall at the rate of twelve to fifteen pounds to the acre.

Spring sowing is either with or without a nurse crop. While young it is a tender plant, but after the first season it will look after itself. Spring sowing gives one light crop the first year. Under irrigation it gives three to four cuttings in the season, yielding three to five tons of cured hay to the acre.

The rainfall is such that all of the hay, unless it be a part of the first crop, can be cut and put into the stack with little fear of

HISTORY OF WESTERN' NEBRASKA

,V,o

damage from rains, coming from the stack at feeding time as bright and green as when cut. The first cutting is best for horses, the second and third for cattle and sheep, and the fourth for milk cows, hog feeding and lamb fattening. All farm animals are fond of it. It makes good green pasture for hogs and horses, but as green pasture it is not the best for cattle and sheep owing to the liability of causing bloat the same as clover. Nebraska grown alfalfa seed is gaining an enviable reputation for purity and excellence. Under irrigation it is not a sure seed cropper, though the second year is liable to produce seed of more value than that of the land upon which it is grown.