SEEDING AND CUTTING. 203 



success whatever. They shade too much and 

 smother out the alfalfa. 



Fall rye sown in the spring is advocated by a New 

 Jersey man who used it thus nearly 100 years ago. 

 I have not tested it, but have my suspicions. 



Alfalfa may be sown with corn at the time of last 

 cultivation in July. Thus sown it makes almost a 

 stand, never quite a perfect stand. The corn robs 

 the land a little too much of moisture to allow the 

 alfalfa to get rightly rooted. There is also a little 

 too much shade. Should alfalfa seed ever become 

 cheap again it would pay to sow it in corn for soil 

 improvement, even if it was turned over next year 

 in late May and again planted to corn. 



Where Are Nurse Crops Permissible ? In Ohio, 

 Illinois, Indiana and probably Iowa and Missouri 

 a nurse crop may be often as good a thing as it is 

 on Woodland Farm. Much depends upon whether 

 it is intelligently used. To sow grain thickly and 

 to let it ripen on the land may very likely prove 

 most injurious to the alfalfa. If a man knows his 

 failings, if he is too greedy to cut the nurse crop 

 at the right time, or too careless, he had better 

 not sow one at all, but sow the alfalfa alone. 



West of the Missouri River it is usually too dry 

 to permit the use of a nurse crop. South of the Ohio 

 Eiver it is safer and better to sow alone in the fall 

 or mid-summer with no nurse crop. 



It is most tempting when one sees a magnificent 

 growth of oats or barley on the land to say, "I must 

 let that ripen; it is too fine to cut down for hay"; 



