CULTIVATION 73 



Wilcox in his "Irrigation Farming"* says : "The 

 critical time with alfalfa is the first six weeks of its 

 growth. Flooding during this period is quite certain to 

 give the plants a backset from which they seldom fully 

 recover before the second, and sometimes not before the 

 third year, and it is not often in the arid states that rain 

 falls with sufficient frequency to dispense with the neces- 

 sity for irrigating the plants while small. By soaking 

 the earth from thirty-six to forty-eight hours before 

 seeding, however, the plants will make vigorous growth 

 until they are ten to twelve inches high, after which they 

 may be irrigated with safety. 



"When alfalfa has become established, a single copious 

 irrigation after each cutting will ordinarily be found suf- 

 ficient. Irrigation before cutting is undesirable, because 

 it leaves the earth so soft as to interfere with the move- 

 ment of machinery and loads. It also makes the stalks 

 more sappy, and, while they will retain the leaves better, 

 there is more difficulty to be experienced in the curing 

 at harvest time; and taken all in all, we much prefer to 

 irrigate after each cutting. In Colorado we cut alfalfa 

 three times and often four times in a season, hence the 

 stand gets as many irrigations. Some people irrigate 

 very early in springtime, before the crowns have awak- 

 ened from their hibernal rest, but this practice is not 

 right. The chill of the water in very early spring is not 

 conducive to quick growth and may often retard the 

 plants in getting an early start. We do not irrigate 

 prior to the first cutting unless the season is particularly 

 dry and the plants seem to actually demand water. We 



* " Irrigation Fanning," by Lute "Wilcox : 314 pp. Orange Judd Company, 

 New York. 



