VARIED USES OF LUCERNE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 15, 19 January 1933, Page 8

VARIED USES OF LUCERNE

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I was very' interested in the news I item which appeared in your journal recently, in which it was stated that the use of sun-dried alfalfa or lucerne is so beneficial in adding butterfat content to cow's milk. There is another use to which lucerne can be put, which appears to be little known in this country. % In California, where' the plant "is cropped' six or seven times a year, lucerne is sun-dried and then boiled as a food for poultry, pigs, and young stock. When broken up in its dried state, the thicker stems and branches of tne plant contain a-great deal of food material which, when boiled, contain almost as much flesh-forming nutriment as ground wheat, pollard, or maize. In these times, when economy in production means so much to the farmer, it is advisable that the possibilities of lucerne as a- substitute for the more expensive stock and poultry foods should be fully investigated, when it will be found t!:at the plant is capable of much more varied uses than its ordinary green state would suggest. Whole books arid pamphlets have been written on the subject, and it would well repay a little study on the part of the poultry^man or the pig-raiser to follow up the matter more fully. In addition, of course, it can be used iin its dried. condition for any other stock. As a base, when mixed with seconds, pollard, crushed maize, wheat, etc., it goes a long way to reduce the cost of "hard feed" and is almost as fattening itself as auy of the foods mentioned. The "wheat control" bugbear now complained of should have no terrors for the farmer, if he will :but turn his attention to the possibilities of lucerne (or alfalfa) as a substitute for the better known meals or as a cheap base with which they can be mixed.—l am, etc., GEO. TOOGOOD.