70 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 



MANURING 



A light top-dressing of manure after sowing, or, in 

 case of fall sowing, any time during the winter, helps to 

 conserve moisture as well as to give the growing plants 

 some nitrogenous food. Applying a top-dressing of 

 stable manure at least every second or third winter is 

 certain to prove profitable. If it contains coarse straw or 

 other litter, this should be raked and hauled off later, but 

 before the alfalfa grows too high, especially if the hay is 

 intended for the city market. Many successful growers 

 in Kansas, who claim to cut from five to seven tons of 

 alfalfa hay per acre in a season apply a top-dressing of 

 manure every winter. The highest yields reported from 

 eastern states are where this practice is followed. Some 

 experiment station men believe that where this is not done 

 the crop will after eight or ten years tend to impoverish 

 the land instead of further improving it. 



DISKING 



The foremost method of cultivation is with the disk 

 harrow, one of the most excellent farm implements ever 

 invented. Alfalfa sown in the fall is almost invariably 

 helped by disking the following spring, with the disks set 

 quite straight, so as not to cut the crowns but to split 

 them. It is usually well to follow this disking with a 

 tooth harrow, with its teeth set straight. Occasionally 

 in a dry summer the disk may be used to great advantage 

 after the second, and possibly the third, cutting also. 

 Many disk their alfalfa field every spring, and some 

 after each cutting, others do so only once in every two 

 or three years, owing to weather conditions and the con- 

 ditions of the alfalfa. In some instances the common 

 harrow is used instead of a disk. 



