Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 114, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1913 — ALFALFA CAMPAIGN (SPREADING RAPIDLY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALFALFA CAMPAIGN (SPREADING RAPIDLY

Auto Cairylng Instruction Directly to the Field •rowing of Alfalfa la Made Possible on Every Farm In the Corn Belt [By Douglas Malcolm, of the I H C Service Bureau.] Within the past week the first automobile alfalfa campaign the world has ever known was carried on in Kent County, Michigan, by the recently organized Kent County Alfalfa Growers* Association. The big "Automobile Special,” in direct charge of the Grand Rapids Association of Commerce, was marked as the initial effort of the Agricultural Extension Department of the International Harvester Company of New Jersey to carry out their avowed purpose 'Of establishing alfalfa on every farm in the Corn Belt. Professor Perry G Holden, the well-known lowa corn expert, whose services were recently secured by that Company, and Federal Agent J. H. Skinner of the United States Department of Agriculture, were the chief missionaries of this wonderfully profitable hut sadly

■eglected forage crop. A systematic canvas from farm to farm, grange to grange, and oftentimes from field to field was made in an effort 'to bring to the farmer in his own home _the facts and figures which have been stored up in the pamphlets and archives of the agricultural schools and colleges. Taking part in the campaign, either in an advisory capacity or as speakers, were the following members of the Agricultural Extension Department: C. M. Carroll, formerly with the Crop Improvement Committee; W. R. Baugham, a prominent rancher and alfalfa grower of Texas; J. E. Waggoner, formerly of the Mississippi Agricultural College; R. W. Lamson of Iowa; J. E. Buck of Chicago; C. W. Farr, assistant county superintendent of Cook County, Illinois; the Hon. G. H. Alford of Georgia, and C. H. Allen, a retired banker of Ohio. That the farmers were ready for the blessings which alfalfa strews over a neighborhood which gives it a neighborly welcome, was evidenced everywhere by the crowds that greeted the campaigners at every stop. At no time were any of the speakers without an encouraging audience, and on some occasions the party was obliged to divide, a part addressing the school children while others jspoke to the farmers. The advent of the cortege Into a community was made Alfalfa Day in the schools. In the towns the children paraded out to meet the autos, singing special alfalfa songs and whvlng flags. It is estimated that between three and four hundred farmers in that one county alone pledged themselves to make a start with alfalfa and do it according to the rules laid down by Federal Expert J. H. Skinner. Kent County, in the census of 1919, was credited with raising only 7S acres of alfalfa, but all indications at the present time are that by 1915 there will be 10,000 acres flourishing with this lefcume. It was shown that on the typical sand or clay loams east of the' Mississippi alfalfa fould be raised as easily and as surely as clover yielding three crops a season and that it was the greatest plant the farm world has yet discovered for extracting nitrogen from the air and storing it up in the soil, thus rejuvenating run down and over-crop-ped farms. The Corn Belt farmer In alarm at his annually diminishing yields, to turning to alfalfa as his one great hope, and the bugle call sounded In Kent County la re-echoing In the entire eastern states. As we go to press, a similar campaign is going on in Allegan County, Michigan; the Toledo Commercial Club la about to wage a powerful alfalfa propaganda In the ten western counties of Ohio. Feelers have been put out by the Connecticst agriculturists for turning the entire I H C Agricultural Extension Department batteries' on that State for a state-wide campaign to introduee alfalfa on the seaboard. Its. possibilities seem to be unlimited, and the prospects are that by the next census the leadership In alfalfa acreage and production may be wrested from the western states and the crown placed upon the brow of the f/MUf WMt and eastern farmer.

Prof. Perry G. Holden addressing the ' farmers of Kent County, Mich., from back steps of a farm house. -