Giving Alfalfa a Square Deal 



Inoculation More Important than Manure 



IF A BEGINNER in growing alfalfa were to ask me "Which 

 shall I do, inoculate my field with one load of alfalfa or sweet- 

 clover soil or apply ten loads of manure to the acre?" I should 

 tell him to do both. If he could not do both I should advise him to 

 apply one load of soil. 



This is not written to discredit the value of manure. It is writ- 

 ten to assert that one load of necessary inoculation soil is worth 

 more in getting a stand of alfalfa than ten loads of manure are worth. 

 This has been shown by experiment as well as by farm experience. 

 Not long ago I received the following letter from a Wisconsin be- 

 ginner in alfalfa culture: 



A Wisconsin Farmer's Experience 



"I am in sore trouble. The ten acres of alfalfa sowed last July 

 made a very heavy growth last fall, going into winter quarters with 

 from one foot to sixteen inches covering. It came through fine. 

 It is now from four to twelve inches high and commencing to look 

 yellow and rusty. Upon investigation I can find no nodules on the 

 roots. I limed heavily with air-slaked lime but did not inoculate. 



"In preparing the land we plowed under ten tons to the acre of 

 mixed stable manure and cultivated the land until July twenty- 

 eighth, when the seed was sown. Much of the alfalfa is now turn- 

 ing yellow before getting as tall as last fall's growth was, as indi- 

 cated by the dry stalks now standing above the green, which causes 

 me to think that last year's growth must have exhausted the nitro- 

 gen and now, not having nodules on the roots, the plants are unable 

 to gather any from the air and are starving." (See Fig. 29.) 



This man inoculated his yellow and sickly alfalfa shortly after the 

 first crop was cut. He spread the inoculation soil with a manure 

 spreader in strips the width of the spreader, but due to a lack of 

 sufficient soil he left a space of eight or ten feet uninoculated every 

 trip he made across the field. He then dragged the field at right 

 angles to the direction in which the inoculated strips ran, so as to 

 spread the inoculated dirt as much as possible. What was the 



result? 







Marvelous Results 



Late that summer his field looked like the Star-Spangled Banner, 

 with stripes not red and white, but green and yellow and tall and 

 short. The cross harrowing failed to distribute the inoculation dirt 

 thoroughly, and in consequence the uninoculated strips remained 

 sickly and yellow, while those strips that received inoculation be- 

 came healthy and vigorous. This is but one of many illustrations 

 I could cite on the value and importance of inoculation. 



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