y effective in destroying the grasshopper eggs deposited in the
soil. They are thus exposed to the action of the subsequent frosts and
so perish. The disking has also tended to stimulate growth in the crop
the following year. The eggs will not, of course, be all destroyed by
such disking, but so large a percentage will, that the crop should be
practically protected from serious injury, unless when grasshoppers come
from elsewhere.

It would seem correct to say that gophers do more injury to alfalfa
fields in certain areas of the West than comes to them from all other
sources combined. They not only destroy the plants by feeding upon them,
but they fill the soil with mounds, which greatly interfere with the
harvesting of the crops. They are destroyed by giving them poisoned
food, trapping, shooting, and suffocating through the use of bisulphide
of carbon. Poison is frequently administered by soaking grain in
strychnine or dropping it on pieces of potato and putting the same in or
near the burrows. Bisulphide of carbon is put upon a rag or other
substance, which is put into the burrow and the opening closed.

Dodder is a parasitical plant introduced, probably, in seed from Europe,
which feeds upon alfalfa plants, to their destruction. The seeds of
alfalfa sometimes become so impregnated with the seeds of dodder that
the latter will grow where the seed is sown, thus introducing it to new
centers. The dodder starts in the soil and soon throws up its
golden-colored thread-like stems, which reach out and fasten on the
alfalfa plants that grow sufficiently near. The dodder then loses its
hold upon the soil and gets its food entirely from the alfalfa plants,
which it ultimately destroys. But since the seeds of the dodder remain
at least for a time in the soil, and the adjacent soil becomes infected
with them, the circles in which the dodder feeds continually widen. In
certain parts of New York State some fields have become so seriously
affected as to lead to investigations conducted through officials from
the State experiment station. Pending these investigations, the exercise
of great care in the purchase of seed and the immediate plowing of the
infested areas are recommended.

Some reference has already been made to injurious results from
pasturing close in the autumn or winter, except in the most favored
alfalfa regions. In addition to what has been already said, the wisdom
of not grazing alfalfa the first year is here emp