THE SEED-BED AND ITS PREPARATION 21 



or less if possible, capillarity should be arrested by 

 loose soil. This allows the moisture to come from 

 below, but arrests it at a point where the seed has 

 been placed for germination. If some implement like 

 a subsurface packer is not at hand to settle the plowed 

 land, it would be best to grow a crop of cow-peas, 

 beans, rape, potatoes, or cabbage, such as would leave 

 the land in fine condition, and then give it only sur- 

 face cultivation before seeding to alfalfa. If the land 

 should need fertilizing (and alfalfa needs plenty of 

 easily available plant-food to start it vigorously), cow- 

 peas, beans, or vetch would be the preferable crops to 

 grow previously, as they leave an added store of nitro- 

 gen easily in reach. 



In regions where the soil may be blown badly by 

 the spring winds, it is found advisable on the land in- 

 tended for alfalfa to grow some sowed crop that will 

 leave a quite heavy stubble. The alfalfa seed should 

 be sown or, better, drilled in, with slight disturbance 

 of the stubble, which keeps the soil from being blown 

 about, and at the same time protedls the young plants 

 by holding the moisture near the surface, as evapora- 

 tion will be much less rapid than if the soil was not so 

 protected. On the high sage-brush lands of Nevada 

 alfalfa is seeded successfully, but the land is not 

 plowed. Many failures there are attributed to plowing 

 the ground, failures being few where the land is mere- 

 ly harrowed and rolled after the brush is removed. 



On irrigable lands the ground should first be deeply 

 plowed or subsoiled to form a reservoir for moisture, 

 as very young alfalfa cannot be advantageously ir- 

 rigated. After plowing, water should be turned on 

 and the soil thoroughly saturated to the depth of a foot 



