1916.] WHY GROW ALFALFA? 71 



Stubble on the surface to act as a partial shade and to keep the 

 soil from washing. Plowing, especially if a coat of manure or 

 heavy coat of stubble is plowed under, causes the soil to dry out 

 too rapidly and too deeply. ' Even oats, with a seed much larger 

 than the little alfalfa seed, frequently do better on disked ground 

 than on plowed ground. But if there are weeds, if the ground 

 has been in oats, say, and the oats have been cut early for hay, 

 then the ground may be plowed, the deeper the better, and the 

 weeds thoroughly killed. After the plowing the ground should be 

 rolled, disked and harrowed frequently to germinate and kill all 

 weed seed and to give a good, hard seed bed underneath, with a 

 clean garden mulch on top. Remember that you are seeding the 

 alfalfa for from three to ten years to come, and it pays to do 

 it well. You can easily reduce your alfalfa hay crop 1 to 2 tons 

 for a number of years to come by not preparing a good seed bed. 

 Think of a man's shortening his yield 2 tons of hay, worth $20 per 

 ton, and that for three to ten years to come, and all of this loss to 

 save a day's labor when preparing a seed bed. The seed bed 

 should be clean enough and soft enough to do for an onion bed. 

 It pays to have a clean, hard seed bed. 



Apply Plenty of the Right Kind oj Lime. 



There are a number of things which we have to learn about 

 liming. But of one thing we are certain, no farm crop requires 

 more lime than does alfalfa. This may be because the bacteria 

 which furnish the nitrogen for the alfalfa, are very sensitive to sour 

 soil. It may be, and undoutedly in part is, because the bacteria 

 that should thrive on the alfalfa roots are most easily killed by 

 acids in the soil. However, I believe that there is another reason. 

 The alfalfa plant has 34 per cent, of lime in its ash, clover has 20 

 per cent, and timothy has 4 per cent. I believe that we are 

 just beginning to learn our A B C's of lime for animal and plant 

 foods. I believe that when the truth is fully understood, we shall 

 know that one reason why alfalfa is so good for growing animals, 

 for poultry and for dairy cows is because of its high per cent, of 

 lime. If this proves to be true, there is no way known to the 

 farmers of to-day by which they may make money faster than to 

 spread lime on the land to feed alfalfa, which in turn is to feed 

 animals and hence return to him in beef or milk, which sells at 

 many times over the cost of the agricultural lime. 



