PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES 29 1 



over the western half of the state, or upon such of the 

 river bottom lands of the state as are above overflow and 

 are underlaid with gravel, giving natural drainage. The 

 experience of Ohio growers of alfalfa has demonstrated 

 the following points : (i) Alfalfa must have lime. If 

 the soil is naturally deficient in this substance it must be 

 added artificially. (2) Alfalfa must have humus. It 

 is idle to attempt to grow it upon a soil which has been 

 worn so thin that it will not grow a good crop of corn. 

 Such soils must be manured before they will successfully 

 produce alfalfa. In this respect it is very different from 

 the plant which it so closely resembles in habit of growth, 

 Sweet clover. (3) Alfalfa will not grow with wet feet, 

 yet it is a great consumer of water, and the soil must be 

 of such a character as to hold large stores of water with- 

 out being water logged. Hence the value of bottom 

 lands naturally underdrained by strata of gravel a few 

 feet below the surface. (4) When lime, humus and 

 drainage are supplied, the bacterial organisms through 

 which atmospheric nitrogen is assimilated will gradually 

 appear upon the alfalfa roots, but their growth may be 

 hastened by inoculating the land with soil from a field 

 in which alfalfa or Sweet clover has previously grown. 

 The experiment station has been most successful in get- 

 ting a stand of alfalfa where the land was thoroughly 

 prepared m the spring and then harrowed every week or 

 ten days until July or August. The seed was then sown 

 and harrowed in. By this means the weed seeds were 

 germinated and destroyed before the alfalfa was sown. 



