-No. 4.] ALFALFA GROWING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 121 



The other permissible nurse crop is winter wheat, sown at 

 the rate of a bnshel to the acre at the same time that the 

 alfalfa is sown in April. The effect is to discourage weeds 

 and grass. The wheat cuts a small crop of hay of good 

 quality and dies at midsummer, leaving the land clean for 

 the alfalfa. 



Each year on Woodland Farm we sow alfalfa in all three 

 ways : alone, with barley and with wheat. We are not able 

 to say which is the best, as all give us good stands; but the 

 barley gives us the profit of a crop of hay, and then nearly as 

 good a stand of alfalfa as when it is sown with wheat or 

 alone. I advise the Massachusetts farmer to test the thing 

 on his own land by sowing strips in each way and observing 

 the result. 



Having the alfalfa sown, and covered lightly by drawing 

 a plank drag over it, or by some other method that will not 

 cover it too deep, we may be certain that it will grow vigor- 

 ously. The next thing is to know when to cut it. Not know- 

 ing this has cost many alfalfa growers dear. Barley or 

 wheat is to be cut for hay, but we do not pay attention to 

 these plants in deciding when to cut the alfalfa ; instead we 

 observe the little alfalfa plants with care to see when there 

 start, down by the surface of the ground, little new shoots 

 or buds. When these shoots start we cut the alfalfa, to- 

 gether with its nurse crop. We never cut sooner. That is 

 the rule for cutting alfalfa during all its life, to cut it when 

 the little shoots have appeared and not to cut it earlier; for 

 it is ruin to alfalfa to cut it before these shoots appear. Why 

 this is, no one knows, but take my word for it, it brings ruin ; 

 and perhaps more alfalfa fields in Massachusetts have been 

 made unprofitable in this manner than in any other. Do not 

 pay attention to bloom, or lack of bloom, as an index of when 

 to cut, but be governed by the state of the basal shoots or buds 

 entirely, and this throughout all the life of the plant. 



Now, that is all, except one important thing: keep out of 

 the alfalfa field except when you go in to make hay. Espe- 

 cially in winter do not allow any one to trespass in it. Let 

 it alone. And remember when you are harvesting your 5 

 tons of hay per acre that alfalfa draws heavily on the soil 



