234 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



ing of the land, but not enough to smother the little al- 

 falfa. Light, chaffy, strawy manure is better here than 

 heavy material. 



Treatment and Use of Alfalfa Meadows-. If one's 

 land is deficient in phosphorus (and whose is not east, 

 of the Missouri River?) one should in the spring go over 

 the alfalfa meadow with a fertilizer distributor and leave 

 there a good dressing of some phosphatic fertilizer. 

 Various substances are available; basic slag, which has 

 in it much lime and available phosphorus, is a good thing 

 to use near the seaboard where it is cheap. Freights to 

 the Middle West make it impracticable to use it there. 

 Acid phosphate is everywhere available and is so soluble 

 that it is perhaps the best substance for mere top-dress- 

 ing. Bonemeal is always good and can be got into 

 the soil by disking or by use of the spring-tooth har- 

 row. One can apply raw phosphatic rock or floats, 

 though it is not available unless mixed through the soil, 

 and will need to be well dug in with spring-tooth or 

 disk harrow. We seem to keep up the production of 

 our alfalfa meadows by using 300 pounds to the acre 

 of acid phosphate of as high analysis as we can buy. 

 Next let the alfalfa alone. It injures it to walk through 

 it or drive through it. Rust is its bane in the East; 

 wherever it is disturbed this rust starts and from that 

 point it spreads. I have seen alfalfa destroyed in a strip 

 20' wide along a footpath made by fishermen near a 

 creek; it is injured where teams turn in cultivating 

 corn. Let it be till it is ready to be mown. 



Time to Mow Alfalfa. When you suspect, finally, 

 that the alfalfa is ready to be made into hay, go to the 



