The Bismarck Tribune

GOSPEL OF ALFALFA
IS JUSTIFIED BY SOO
LINE EXHIBIT CARS

Value as Feed for Producing
Milk or Flesh on Stock Is
Presented in City

Aiming to attack the weed evil from a new angle, improve crop rotation at the same time and make possible an expansion of livestock raising, the Soo Line alfalfa and sweet clover demonstration cars spent Saturday night and Sunday in the yards here and then continued their four-state tour this morning, by heading for Washburn and Wilton.

The cars are in charge of Howard McNutt, agricultural agent of the road on this division, and Jens Uhrenholdt, also of the agricultural department. They have been in the southern part of the state since starting the tour at Oakes and they have been presenting their gospel of greater hay supply to crowds averaging 200 at the various towns on the line on the way here. They will extend the tour through the remainder of the state, then carry their message to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Use Film and Exhibits

The party is presenting the subject of alfalfa and sweet clover through the medium of a film and shown in one car by means of an exhibit set up in another. The film shows the methods of preparing the soil and drilling in the seed, which gives best results when sowed eight pounds to the acre. It also shows methods of stacking so as to preserve the greatest percentage of the alfalfa leaves, in which there is 65 per cent of the feed value and which constitute 45 per cent of the stalk. If the handling is careless, from 10 to 50 per cent of the leaves are lost.

Making Eating Easy for Cow

The exhibit car has striking demonstrations of the value of alfalfa and sweet clover. One is a balance on one side of which rests an 80-pound bale of oats straw, while on the other is a 10-pound bale of alfalfa. Each contains the same amount of proteins, 1.04 pounds, and the exhibit is intended to set forth the economy of feeding the compact alfalfa, thus multiplying results in butter fat by making possible the absorption of a greater amount of proteins in the concentrated feed.

Other exhibits give the results of tests showing gain in flesh in livestock fed on alfalfa diet with some grain. Milk has been increased four-fold by feeding alfalfa as compared with timothy hay. One table of results indicated returns of $47.34 an acre from alfalfa used as hog pasture.

Sweet clover was declared to have eight times the carrying capacity of the best native grass as forage or pasture. To avoid bloat the feeding of some straw with it was advocated.

One Farm Becomes Six

The soil enriching nature of clover also was discussed. Plowed under it is said to equal 14 tons of rotted manure per acre, as fertilizer. It then will increase the moisture-carrying capacity of the soil four times.

Another advantage of alfalfa is in the root system. They will penetrate six depths of soil as compared with the penetration of timothy or grain. The argument based on this is put in the form of a question, Why not thus farm six farms?

The exhibits include corn and flax and the farmers are urged especially to go into the growing of more of the latter crop. They are warned to be sure to use clean seed of a wilt-resisting variety and to be sure to sow the seed on soil suited to growing flax. It also is necessary to sow flax as a rotation crop.

Several land owners of the city attended the exhibition and remained over after the lectures to discuss alfalfa with Howard McNutt. They are particularly interested in venturing to grow the crop on the river bottoms.