SOIL AND SEEDING 59 



the nurse crop is heavy and has lodged, there will be left 

 bare spots, where the alfalfa has been smothered out. 



Cutting the nurse crop is likely to be attended with 

 no little damage to the tender alfalfa plants by trampling 

 their crowns into the ground, or by breaking them oft. 

 Practically all the experiment stations favor sowing 

 alone. With few exceptions the second and third years 

 have brought heavier yields where no nurse crop was 

 used. The theory that the nurse crop will prevent the 

 weeds choking the alfalfa is apparently, as a rule, not 

 well founded. In the first place alfalfa should not be 

 sown on foul land, and in the second place proper disking 

 and harrowing, at near intervals for four or six weeks 

 before sowing, will disturb or kill far more weeds than 

 can any nurse crop. Besides, the oats or barley sown as 

 a nurse will when cut leave weeds in good growth, or 

 dormant and ready to spring up as fast or faster than 

 the alfalfa. No nurse crop is ever used with fall sowing. 

 When ground has been thoroughly prepared for the 

 preceding crop, and then properly cared for, and made 

 ready for the alfalfa by the preliminary weed destruc- 

 tion, it will be found advisable to sow alfalfa alone, even 

 in the spring. 



INOCULATING THE SOIL 



It has been found where alfalfa shows thrifty vigor, 

 is making a good stand, and is at least two years 

 old, that on the roots are little nodules or wart-like pro- 

 tuberances. On fields where the alfalfa is unthrifty or 

 failing to make a good stand, examination will probably 

 fail to discover any of these nodules. Scientists tell us 



