106 TRANSACTIONS OF STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



There is a great variety of opinion as to best time of seeding. We have 

 sown at all times, from November or December to April, and have had 

 good and poor success ; it depends on the season, and nothing can be told 

 of them beforehand. 



I think it best to sow early, say after a good rain, as soon as the 

 ground has become dry enough to work easily, and then, if from frosts 

 or scant early rains the stand is a failure, there is plenty of time to pre- 

 pare the ground and put in another crop, hoping there will be plenty of 

 late rains to give it a start. There is no danger from frosts after the 

 third leaves have started. 



Some claim that ten to fifteen pounds of seed to the acre is sufficient, 

 but we prefer twenty-five to thirty pounds. If it all grew the small 

 amount would be all right, but conditions are so liable to prevent all 

 from growing that I prefer to pay a little more money for seed and 

 insure a good stand. 



If the stand is thin it is not the easiest thing to thicken it up success- 

 fully, but if the seed comes up too thick it is a "survival of the fittest" 

 and the weaker stalks are killed out, leaving a good, thick and even 

 stand, which makes the best quality of hay. 



For a nurse crop in starting alfalfa nothing is better than a very 

 light crop of wheat, say fifty pounds of seed per acre. If a greater 

 amount of seed is used the wheat will come up so thick as to smother 

 the alfalfa, or if it grows it will be so tender that as soon as the wheat 

 is cut it will wither and die. If the wheat should be too thick, it must 

 not be left until grown enough for hay, but cut and removed earlier. 



Some prefer nothing but weeds for protection, but it will cost no more 

 to grow a light crop of wheat, and what is taken off will be good feed, 

 while the weeds will have to be thrown away. 



When a stand from any cause gets thin and needs thickening up, one 

 of our neighbors recommends that the ground be harrowed or disked so 

 as to loosen the earth, and seed sowed before the rains begin. He says 

 he has been successful in this, where before he had found it hard to 

 re-seed an old stand. 



We top-dress our alfalfa stands with fine manure from our corrals in 

 the fall before the rains and then run a disk over it both ways. The 

 disk may cut and split some of the heads of roots, but the damage 

 amounts to nothing. 



Some think top-dressing is not necessary, but we think it does the 

 soil good and leaves a mulch to hold the moisture. 



On our farm in average years we can cut six or seven crops of hay 

 without irrigation, but there is no doubt that the yield can be increased 

 by irrigating. The question of expense comes in here and the farmer 

 must decide whether it will pay him for his trouble or not. 



There is considerable difficulty in curing the first and last cuttings to 

 make good hay, and some recommend that these cuttings be put in 

 the silo. 



