No. 4.] ALFALFA IN NEW ENGLAND. 153 



experience it pays to sow early enough to get a good growth 

 before cold weather. I want a foot or 15 inches of growth. 

 It protects from alternate freezing and thawing, and in every 

 way helps the crop to go through the winter. I have often had 

 it grow so well that it seemed almost wicked to leave it, and 

 I might have been tempted to cut it except that I knew it 

 was worth ever so much more in the ground than if cut. And 

 I should say, from experience in Amherst and from observa- 

 tion in many parts of the State, that we ought to get alfalfa 

 in before the 10th of August, — some time from about the 25th 

 of July to the 10th of August will suit most parts of the State, 

 I think. We have occasionally had good results at the college 

 grounds at Amherst in seeding alfalfa in with the corn, but you 

 must not anticipate so perfect a stand, so complete a cover of 

 the ground, if you seed in that way. Yet it is quite possible, 

 and I agree heartily with the speaker, that putting in a little 

 alfalfa seed in ordinary mowing is a good idea, and if in your 

 experience you have found it a satisfactory method to seed the 

 alfalfa with corn, put the alfalfa seed in at that time without 

 hesitation. If I were planning for a crop of clear alfalfa I 

 should not advocate that method of seeding because it is highly 

 important to get the ground completely covered, owing to the 

 grass and weeds and white clover which keep crowding the 

 alfalfa out on many kinds of land. 



The question of phosphates was touched upon. This ques- 

 tion is one on which, as some of you may remember, I have 

 recently published a bulletin. The bulletin will support, on the 

 whole, the position taken by the speaker. Acid phosphate 

 seems to be a good source of phosphoric acid, and I agree with 

 him that we don't exactly know, perhaps, just why it is so 

 good. Many of you have been attracted, no doubt, owing to 

 the beautiful manner in which Dr. Hopkins expresses himself, 

 and the extent to which he is quoted, to try fine-ground rock 

 phosphates. We have had them side by side for eighteen years 

 with acid phosphates, with basic slag and with various forms 

 of bone, not only one rock phosphate, but all the different 

 kinds, — South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, — using these 

 phosphates every year in such quantities as to furnish equal 

 phosphoric acid. From the start the acid phosphate was supe- 



