MANURES AND HUMUS IN SOIL. 157 



pleted of humus. Could more manure have been 

 spared doubtless the field could have been gotten 

 ready for alfalfa earlier, but it was not available, 

 so red clover, which is less exacting, came in first 

 and paved the way. 



Methods of Using Manure. — While there can be 

 no question of the value of manure for alfalfa yet 

 there are several ways of using it, some much more 

 successful than others. It is seldom good practice to 

 apply heavy coats of manure and at once sow al- 

 falfa. The trouble is from the strong growth of 

 weeds and annual grasses that will result and which 

 may in part smother the alfalfa. Manure is often 

 filled with weed seeds, has tendency to rush rapidly 

 all weeds that naturally spring up and these worth- 

 less things outgrow the little alfalfa plants. Weeds 

 may usually be subdued by mowing off the field 

 two or three times during the season, but there is 

 danger in mowing young alfalfa at the wrrong time 

 which sometimes destroys it. Briefly, alfalfa ought 

 not to be cut till little shoots appear on the bases of 

 the stems. These shoots appear as buds which de- 

 velop into new stems. Before these shoots appear 

 it sometimes quite destroys alfalfa to cut it off ; this 

 is especially true the first season of its existence. So 

 one can not mow off weeds till these little shoots 

 come. The writer has more than once seen efforts 

 made to force alfalfa to grow by heavy manuring 

 when what it really needed was liming. The only 

 result was a worse crowding by weeds. 



It is very much better to apply a heavy coat of 



