SOIL AND SEEDING 53 



isfactory results from fall seeding. It seems pretty well 

 established, however, that fall sowing is safer in the 

 central latitude states, say including Ohio, Nebraska, 

 Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and Utah, and states within 

 the same parallels. 



In other states prevailing opinions favor spring sow- 

 ing. Nevertheless, when all conditions are understood, 

 fall sowing seems likely to become the established prac- 

 tice throughout the United States. This is in line with 

 the system for the more staple crops and common rota- 

 tion ; it gives opportunity to bring the ground into better 

 condition; the preparation and sowing come at the most 

 convenient season, and one of relatively greater leisure; 

 there is less interruption by unfavorable weather ; the soil, 

 responding more readily to surface cultivation, permits 

 the work to be done with less danger of surface water 

 retarding normal root development, and the annual 

 weeds being dead they cannot interfere with the first 

 growth of the alfalfa. Sown in the fall, with time to 

 secure some growth for winter protection, alfalfa will 

 be ready to respond to the first call of spring, and for 

 the mow^er early in June. Moreover, if it fails from 

 freezing or other cause, little crop-time is lost. The 

 farmer has but to disk and harrow in April or early May, 

 and sow half as much seed as he sowed in the fall, and 

 he will have prospect of a cutting in eighty or ninety 

 days, at an expenditure of but few pounds of seed and 

 a little labor. 



DISADVANTAGES OF SPRING SOWING 



Ordinarily, if a farmer sows in the spring, he has his 

 old enemy, the weeds, to contend with. If the season be 



