without loss. Sometimes the entire cutting will be
rendered practically useless by rain. Because of this, as previously
intimated, it may be well to arrange, where practicable, to cut the
first crop of the season for soiling food.

The number of cuttings during the year depends on such conditions as
relate to the length of the season, the character of the soil, the
abundance of moisture present, and the use to which the alfalfa is put.
In some of the river bottoms southward in the Rocky Mountains, where
irrigating waters are plentiful, it is claimed that alfalfa may be made
to furnish one cutting for soiling food every month in the year. Even in
the Northern western valleys, as many as five or six cuttings for the
use named may be obtained. North from the Ohio and Potomac rivers three
to five cuttings of soiling food may be looked for each season, and
south of these rivers even a larger number. North of the same rivers the
hay crops run from two to four, and southward from the same they are
seldom less than three. In the western valleys they range from three to
five or six, according to location. In States bordering on the semi-arid
States eastward and some distance south of the Canadian boundary, from
three to four cuttings may usually be expected. In Colorado and States
north and south from the same, two good crops of alfalfa may be cut from
spring-sown seed the same season, but where irrigation is not practiced
it is seldom that one crop of hay is harvested under similar conditions
of sowing. But in the semi-arid belt not more than one cutting is
usually obtained each season in the absence of water. But the number of
cuttings will be reduced when one of these is a seed crop. When a seed
crop is taken, the vitality of the plants is apparently so much reduced
for the season that the subsequent growth is much less vigorous than if
seed had not been thus taken.

The yield of hay from each cutting will, of course, vary much with
conditions, but it is seldom less than a ton. An approximate average
would place the average cutting at about 1-1/4 tons, but as much as 2
tons have been obtained per acre at a cutting, and, again, not more than
1/2 ton. In New Jersey an average of 4.57 tons per acre was obtained
under good conditions of management, but without irrigation, at the
experiment station for three years in succession. In Kansas, 4 to 6 tons
per acre may usually be expected from good soils. In Tulare County,
California,