11 



Of course members of this association will not run the risk 

 of planting seed until their farm bureau agent or their State 

 college men have examined and tested their seed. There is too 

 much danger of dodder. After I had examined the seed from 

 one seed house, and had Pennsylvania State College examine 

 it, and had the men in the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture at Washington examine it, I found that the seed house 

 had sent a farmer seetl in which he might plant thirteen dodder 

 seeds to a square rod. If you once get dodder on your place, 

 ' you will probably be unable to grow paying crops of alfalfa 

 for five or more years. My advice is to have samples of the 

 seed examined by some one who knows how to examine and 

 test alfalfa seed. But even that does not assure you that it is 

 northern grown seed. Therefore, get seed from a reliable seed 

 man, pay him a reasonable price, but give him to understand 

 that he is to be responsible for the delivery of first-class north- 

 ern grown, acclimated seed. 



Give the Soil or the Seed Abundant Inoculation. 



There are two ways to inoculate. One way is to go to a field 

 where alfalfa is being grown and where there are plenty of nod- 

 ules on the roots and take the soil from there and spread the soil 

 over the field which you intend to sow to alfalfa. There are 

 people who will tell you that 200 or 300 pounds of soil will do. 

 That may be true Avhere you can sift the soil and seed or sow 

 it with a hand seeder, but I think that a man can better afford 

 to use 2 tons than 200 pounds of soil. If I were going to grow 

 alfalfa, I would put in 2 or 4 square rods of ground. I would 

 put this into alfalfa in the spring. I would inoculate it heavily, 

 and then from that patch I would get soil for my field. 



For field inoculation I would use the manure spreader. I 

 would go to a piece of ground where the nodules are thick, 

 shovel oft' about 2 or 3 inches of the surface soil, and then load 

 the spreader with the soil that lies from 3 inches to 15 inches 

 below the surface. Then I would drive to the land which I 

 intended to sow in alfalfa. There I would put the spreader 

 in gear, let it run until the dirt began to pile up near the roar 

 of the spreader, then stop and crank the load to the front and 



