FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 383 



On another occasion I sowed a nine-acre field without a nurse-crop, 

 and mowed it off about the 20th of June and removed the cutting; then 

 about July 1st I turned on fifteen head of grown cattle and kept them 

 there until the ground froze up. This, too, on a very dry summer — 

 1896. I might add this field is as good today, after all these years, as 

 it has ever been. 



Now while I am satisfied that spring seeding can be safely pas- 

 tured without injury to the crop, and that it is often the proper thing 

 to do, I do not wish to be understood as advocating the tramping of 

 the ground when it is muddy or soft. Alfalfa will not at any age form a 

 sod; it is in fact the loosest piece of ground on the farm, 



I have never before publicly advocated the pasturing of this plant 

 the first season, and even now I have some hesitancy in spreading the 

 doctrine broadcast. Not that I fear grazing will injure the stand, but 

 because stock will not graze a field evenly. Here and there, for rea- 

 sons best known to the stock patches will be left almost untouched. 

 It is these spots I fear. The grain, or in the absence of a nurse-crop, 

 weeds will spring up and strangle the alfalfa. The mower should be 

 used early and often on these patches. A spotted alfalfa field is an eye 

 sore. 



^londamin, Iowa. 



CONCERNING ALFALFA. 



Wallace's Farmer. 



We are having a great number of letters from different states de- 

 scribing certain pieces of land and asking whether alfalfa will grow 

 there or not. We can not, of course, tell. Alfalfa is being grown on 

 many kinds of land where it was not supposed that it could be grown 

 ten years ago, or five years ago, or two years ago. 



We would not try it on heavy limestone clay; we would not try it 

 on land that needs drainage; we would not try it on land that is under- 

 laid with a clay. so tenacious and stiff that it will hold water like a 

 dish. We d'o not think it will pay to go to the expense of trying it 

 under these conditions, but under almost any other condition it is 

 worth while. We hope it will be tried in a great many places this year. 

 All we ask is that it be given a fair trial; that is, that the land, if plowed 

 this spring, be plowed early and then worked down thoroughly until 

 the seed bed has a good hard bottom and a loose surface. Where the 

 land is in cornstalks we w:ould not advise plowing, but disking thor- 

 oughly, then sow about twenty-five pounds of seed just before the time 

 you would naturally plant corn. 



We put it this way because any date that we might fix in April or 

 May would not fit the various latitudes. In the extreme south of our 

 territory we would prefer fall planting, but in the northern part, say 

 from the Iowa line up, we would prefei'' spring. There will be no trou- 



