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land warms up,the seed may be either broadcasted or drilled. 

 We sow broadcast. To get a good quality of forage the 

 plants should be close together, so that the stems will be 

 small and not woody. Alfalfa is easily choked with weeds, 

 hence the necessity of clean land. As soon as our plants 

 are a foot tall, we mow them down, whether there are 

 weeds or not. This cutting should be left on the ground 

 to protect the roots from the scorching sun. Whether the 

 field is weedy or not, repeat the mowing as often as your 

 crop is high enough to cut, as every time you cut off the 

 plant it drives the roots deeper into the soil, and this will 

 give the plant more strength and vigor to go through the 

 winter. Alfalfa will yield a better crop the second and 

 succeeding years than the first year. On a plot of three 

 acres which had been down three years we cut sixteen and 

 one-third tons of cured alfalva in three cuttings, and could 

 have cut a fourth cutting, but preferred to leave it for a 

 mulch for winter. 



The centre of that field was killed out last winter by 

 water collecting on it and freezing, the centre of the field 

 being a basin, the outer edges where the water could drain 

 off, wintered all right, and we cut off four crops during 

 the past season, and then plowed the field up. We have 

 ten acres which has srone through two seasons, and we cut 

 off three heavy crops the past summer, and on Oct. 18th 

 I cut this bunch of alfalfa hap-hazard from the field, and 

 it measured eighteen inches tall. This was a fourth crop, 

 which was left as a mulch. We cut the alfalfa as soon as 

 the first blossoms appear. If you wait until your field is 

 in full bloom, you will have lost a good part of your feed- 

 ing value, as the stem will have become too woody, mak- 

 ing it unpalatable for cattle. We cut in the afternoon, 

 let the alfalfa lie in the swath until wilted, then rake into 

 windrows, put it up in cocks five feet high. We then 



