rrigation, a climate that is reasonably dry
is preferable to one where drenching rains frequently fall, which wash
away the soil when sandy, or which fill it full of water when composed
of clay. But where rains fall frequently and in moderation, as in the
northern Puget Sound region, the effect is helpful to the growth of the
alfalfa plants, although it may add somewhat to the labor of making
alfalfa hay, and to the hazard in curing it. Alfalfa will maintain its
hold for years on some portions of the table lands of the mountain
States under conditions so dry that the plants can only furnish one
cutting of hay in a season. It is safe to assume, therefore, that
alfalfa can be grown under a wider range of climatic conditions than any
other legume grown in the United States. But the influence which climate
should be allowed to exercise on the use that is to be made of it should
not be lost from view. In climates much subject to frequent rains in
summer, it should be grown rather for soiling food and pasture than for
hay, whereas in dry climates, and especially where it can be irrigated,
it should be grown for hay, soiling food and pasture, but especially the
former.

While alfalfa can be successfully grown in one or the other of its
varieties in some portion of every State in the Union, it has its
favorite feeding grounds. The best conditions for growing it are found
in the valleys of all the Rocky Mountain States, where the growth can be
regulated by the application of irrigating waters. In these the
conditions southward are superior to those northward, because of the
milder climate, which precludes the danger of winter killing by
exposure, which occasionally happens in the more northerly of the
mountain States, and because of the more prolonged season for growth,
which adds to the number of the cuttings. This does not mean that the
river bottoms in other parts of the United States will not be found good
for growing alfalfa. It can be grown in many of these; in fact, in
nearly all of them, and to some extent by the aid of irrigation, if the
waste waters were stored, but the deposit soil in these valleys being of
much closer texture than that in the western valleys, is, on the whole,
lower in adaptation than the soil in the latter.

In the western valleys of the mountain States, alfalfa is the crop
around which it may be said that agricultural production centers. It is
the principal hay crop of those States. The extent to