LUCERNE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 128, 5 January 1916, Page 4

LUCERNE.

Farmers are eminently a con servative peopb as far as cultivation methods are coccErned, always showing reluctance to depart from the methods which served past generations with more or less success, and consequently it is only after the most complete demonstration of the potentialities ot a new plant or of a new method that they will give up the old plant or the old method and adopt ths new. In America the Agricultural Department has done much valuable work in introducing new fodder and other plants and iD the Dominion (he Government has done something in the same direction, but up to the present the subject has been bandied in a or less gingeily fashion,

whilst during recent years an inexplcabla lethargy appears to have crept into the opeiationa tf the Department. Howeve-, something has been accomplished, although

tnufh remains to be done. . So far, however, comparatively few farmers have been brought into line, the majority preferring to pin their faith to the old-time grasses which have served their ancestors frotr time immemorial. la seasons when nearly all other grass nnrt clovets perish from lack of moisture or laDguub, luc.rce, drawing its nutriment from deep down in the soil, thrives exceedingly, reaching to a coneiderable height, and giving an astorishingly heavy return of luscious fodder, and consequently it is eminently suit-d for any areas where the rainfall is doubtful. The faltering qualities of lucerne are recognised everywhere, stock evince a great partiality for it, and, although the feeding of it to stock—it is better treated thus than fed off in the usual wayentails a certain amcunt of labour, there can be no question but that it would pay and pay handsomely for every farmtr in the province to cultivate a limited area. It is strange that dairymen du not go in fur it to a great;r extent than they have hitherto Cone, as with its assistance they would be practically independent of climatic conditions. Now that they can see its great utility, it is porsible that they will not allow another season to pass without making provision against the recurrence of a shortage of fodder such as they are experi I encing this season.

The genua of plant? to which luceriie belongs contains a large number of species, and is of great agricultural importance, since it includes, besides lucerne, a number of promising species as yet little known. The genus includes two groups of species that are very distinct from an agricultural standpoint. The first and more important is the group of erect perennials of the plfalfa type. The other consist of species tbtt are prostrate or spreading in habit ut growth. Nearly all the latter are annuals. Lucerne is generally believed to he of Asiatic origin, but the record of the first domestication and earliest use of the plant is vague. It was apparently well established in agriculture before the earliest records of Greek history, but whether it was first domesticated by the Persian', as the Greeks supposed, or was used eatlier by peopls further east, is not known. The early Persian name of the plant has not come down to u®. b'Jt the Komafs, who learned of it and its culture from the Greeks, accented both it ard its Greek name and the account ot the introduction of the plant into Greece from Persia, which is said to have occurred at the time of the Persian invasion, P.C. 490 Thus the name "Medike," by which the plant was known to the Greeks, and "tJera Medica," by which it was known to the Romans, refer to its Persian or Median origin. It wash highly prized as a forage crop, especially by the Romans, and is frequently mentioned by their writers on agriculture and natural history as early as the beginning of the Christian era. Some time early in the middle ages it came to be known populatly under the nama "luzerne," also "luserne," "lucerne" and"lucerD," which was probably derived from the name of a river valley in Northern Italy. It was undoubtedly cultivated as a forage plant in Northern Africa nearly or quite as early as it was known in Italy, but whether the culture was carried into Africa by the Romans or whether it was brought westward direct irom Asia is not clear. The Arab invasion which swept across Northern Africa and into Southwestern Europe in the seventh century seems to have carried the culture of the plant and the Arabic name with it into Spain bo that at

about the time the Southern Europeans were beginning to know the plant as "luzerne," the North African and Spanish people, under Arabic and Moorish influence, weie calling it by the name of "afalfa,"

or "altacfacah," which in the Arabic language means "the beet 1 kind of focider." With the ois-j covery and colonisation 1 of America, the English and West European colonists carried the plant and the name "lucerne" to Eastern North America, whilst the Spanish colonists carried the same plant, under the came "alfalfa," to Mexico ar.d South America. Until very recently the name "lucern" has been the more popular in the Eastern United Statep, and it was even canicd as far west as Utah by the Mormon pioneers in the midcle of the nineteenth century, where it still persists in commcm use.

Lucerne 19 (he beat fiiend cl the dairy farmer and grazitr in many countries, and there seema to be ro good reaam why it Bhould not be also n New Zealand, 'lhe annual value of tli2 lucerne in the United litres is recorded at over £200,00,1)00; it 19 the wealthmaker of the Argentine. At the present lime it is occupying the. attention ot all who are foremost in agriculture developmer.t. Daring the past few seisous the New Zealand Agricultural Department has encouraged progressive farmers throughout the Dominion 10 establish pl'Jts of lucerne on their farm, by supplying free of cost seeds lime and inoculated soil to test one ecre of land, so as to ascertain whether the boil is suitable fjr ita growth, and what its requirements may be to secure a grod stand, Lucerne grows best on alluvial Eoila with i free subsoil, but it will grow on most soil 3 providtd tfcev are rot s;ur, the drainage good, and the water-table at Isast four feet from the surface. The greater the distance the water-table 13 below the surface of th? land, the longer the life ot the plant. It has been demonstrated in various parts of the South Island that lucerne will grow succeasfully and loxuria&tly in sand areas without the aid of lim?, inoculated suil or fertilisers. It can be sown either in the spring or autumn. In its growth lucerne is probably the greatest wonder among plants. While its normal height is about three feet, its roots go down twenty, thirty and forty feet and even more. In one case in the State of Nevada the roots were found penetrating through crevices in the roof of a tunnel 129 ft below the surface oi' a lucerne field. Lucerne does not impoverish the soil, but enriches it in two WBys—(l) ~ t>y storing nitrogen in the soil from tha air, and (2) by drawing up plant focd from luwer soil strata which would not be utlised were it not for its deep pene- ; trating roots.