FERTILIZING ALFALFA FIELDS 215 



spread ; it will prove serviceable both in protecting 

 the plants and in furnishing plant-food that may 

 be well distributed in the soil by fall and winter 

 rains. 



Second and succeeding years ^ a top-dressing is 

 recommended of eight to ten tons of manure, and 

 an application of fertilizers supplying about twenty 

 pounds of available phosphoric acid and twenty- 

 five pounds of potash, which may preferably be 

 obtained from 150 pounds of acid phosphate and 

 fifty pounds of muriate of potash per acre. The 

 fertilizers may be broadcasted, preferably after the 

 first cutting in spring, or previous to the last cut- 

 ting in fall, and the manure applied as recom- 

 mended for the first year. 



In regions where alfalfa is new, the land should 

 be inoculated. There is but one practical way to 

 do this, — by the use of soil from an established 

 alfalfa field, or from a patch of sweet clover 

 (melilotus). The same bacteria inhabit each of 

 these plants. It does not matter how much soil 

 is used, so long as it is fine and is scattered over 

 the field and harrowed in before sunlight destroys 

 the germs. As little as 200 pounds will inoculate 

 an acre, and a ton of earth has been used with 

 good results. Even and thorough distribution of the 

 inoculated soil is readily accomplished by sowing it 

 on the land just after plowing, the tillage required 

 in seeding ensuring the complete distribution. 



