If thin seeding and thorough soil stirring are practiced, lucern usually grows well, and with such treatment should become one of the great dry-farm crops.  The yield of hay is not large, but sufficient to leave a comfortable margin of profit.  Many farmers find it more profitable to grow dry-farm lucern for seed.  In good years from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars may be taken from an acre of lucern seed.  However, at the present, the principles of lucern seed production are not well established, and the seed crop is uncertain.

Alfalfa is a leguminous crop and gathers nitrogen from the air.  It is therefore a good fertilizer.  The question of soil fertility will become more important with the passing of the years, and the value of lucern as a land improver will then be more evident than it is to-day.

Other leguminous crops

The group of leguminous or pod-bearing crops is of great importance; first, because it is rich in nitrogenous substances which are valuable animal foods, and, secondly, because it has the power of gathering nitrogen from the air, which can be used for maintaining the fertility of the soil.  Dry-farming will not be a wholly safe practice of agriculture until suitable leguminous crops are found and made part of the crop system.  It is notable that over the whole of the dry-farm territory of this and other countries wild leguminous plants flourish.  That is, nitrogen-gathering plants are at work on the deserts.  The farmer upsets this natural order of things by cropping the land with wheat and wheat only, so long as the land will produce profitably.  The leguminous plants native to dry-farm areas have not as yet been subjected to extensive economic study, and in truth very little is known concerning leguminous plants adapted to dry-farming.

In California, Colorado, and other dry-farm states the field pea has been grown with great profit.  Indeed it has been found much more profitable than wheat production.  The field bean, likewise, has been grown successfully under dry-farm conditions, under a great variety of climates.  In Mexico and other southern climates, the native population produce large quantities of beans upon their dry lands.

Shaw suggests that sanfoin, long famous for its service to European agriculture, may be found to be a profitable dry-farm crop, and that sand vetch promises to become an excellent dry-farm crop.  It is very likely, however, that many of the leguminous crops which have been developed under conditions of abundant rainfall will be valueless on dry-farm lands.  Every year will furnish new and more complete information on this subject.  Leguminous plants will surely become important members of the association of dry-farm crops.

Trees and shrubs