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In Alabama alfalfa should be sown alone and not 

 with grain, which is so much used as a nurse crop for 

 alfalfa, clover and grasses in the North and West. 



In covering alfalfa the procedure must necessarilv 

 differ according to local conditions, the preparation of 

 the land, and the state of the weather. The most com- 

 mon custom in Alabama is to cover Avith a spike tooth 

 harrow, teeth inclined backward. An equally good or 

 better wry employed by a few gTowers is to cover the 

 seed with a weeder, which affords a more sliallow cover- 

 ing than any form of harrow. A carefully made brush 

 drag can also be used, but either of the preceding imple- 

 ments is preferable. We have found it advantageous 

 when the land is dry to use the roller immediately after 

 sowing and then to use the haiTow or weeder. This 

 order could be reversed, but at the risk of having the 

 rolled surface transfonued into a dense crust, should a 

 heavy rain fall occur before the seed germinate. Co- 

 bum, an authority on alfalfa, advises that when from 

 any cause a crust has been formed prior to the appear- 

 ance of young plants, that this crust should be broken 

 with weeder or harrow, even at the risk of briufrinur 

 some of the sprouting seed to the surface. 



It pays to buy the best alfalfa seed, even though they 

 should cost several cents more than inferior seed. Im- 

 ported as well as old should be avoided. So far as this 

 information can be obtained, it is desirable to purchase 

 »eed grown in regilons where love vine (dodder) is not 

 abundant. In anv case it is advisable to buv seed that 

 have been run through a machine that is claimed to be 

 able to remove the seed of dodder. As indicating the 

 need of buying the best alfalfa seed, even at an increas- 

 ed price, one of the farmers who is conducting one of 

 our alfalfa experiments in Wilcox county, under the 



