56 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



low it. It is not a bad practice to cover the lucerne field with a 

 coat of coal ashes or poor sand, merely to keep down the weeds, 

 where this can easily be done. 



The soil in which it is intended to sow lucerne seed should be 

 well prepared. It should be highly manured for the two or three 

 preceding crops and deeply ploughed, if not trenched. It should 

 be perfectly clean, and for this purpose two successive crops of 

 turnips are most effectual. The turnips should be fed off with 

 sheep. In the month of March, the land having been ploughed 

 flat and well harrowed, a very small quantity of barley, not above 

 a bushel to the acre, may be sown, or rather drilled on the 

 ground, and at the same time from 30 to 40 Ibs. of lucerne seed 

 sown broadcast and both harrowed in and lightly rolled. If 

 the land will not bear to be laid flat without water-furrows, it 

 will be useless to sow lucerne in it. 



As the crop comes up it must be carefully weeded: no expense 

 must be spared to do this effectually, for success depends upon 

 it. When the barley is reaped, the stubble, which will probably 

 be strong, should be pulled up by tne hand hoe, or by harrowing, 

 if the plants of lucerne be strong, and at all events the ground 

 must be cleared of weeds. It must not be fed off with sheep; 

 they would bite too near the crown. Lucerne should always be 

 cut as soon as the flower is formed. If it is kept clear of weeds 

 the first year, there will be little difficulty with it afterwards, 

 when the roots have become strong. The second year the lucerne 

 will be fit to cut very early, and in a favorable season it may be 

 cut four or five times. After each cutting it is useful to draw heavy 

 harrows over the land, or an instrument made on purpose resem- 

 bling harrow teeth, the teeth of which are flat, and cutting the 

 soil like coulters. It will not injure the plants, even if it divide 

 the crown of the root, but it will destroy grass and weeds. Liquid 

 manure, which consists of the urine of cattle and drainings of 

 dunghills, is often spread over the lucerne immediately after 

 it has been mown, and much invigorates the next growth; but if 

 the land is rich to a good depth this is scarcely necessary. The 

 lucerne will grow and thrive from seven to twelve years, when 

 it will begin to wear out, and, in spite of weeding, the grass will 

 get the upper hand of it. It should then be plowed up, all the 

 roots carefully collected and laid in a heap with dung and lime 

 to rot, and a course of regular tillage should succeed. The same 

 land should not be sown with lucerne again in less than ten or 

 twelve years, after a regular course of cropping and manuring. 



Cattle fed upon lucerne thrive better than on any other green 

 food. Horses in particular can work hard upon it without any 

 corn, provided it be slow work. Cows give plenty of good milk 



