SEEDING AND CUTTING. 217 



square foot — sometliing over one seed to each square 

 inch of soil. An alfalfa plant requires about 16 to 

 25 square inches of space. Thus use of 30 pounds 

 of seed is from 16 to 25 times too much, supposing 

 that each seed dropped made a living plant. "When 

 sown in drills one pound of seed is enough for an 

 acre, and seeding in drills will be a practical scheme 

 in America. 



One pound of seed per acre makes approximately 

 five seeds to each square foot. There ought to be 

 nine plants per square foot to make a good stand 

 on ordinary soil fit for alfalfa growing. That would 

 require two pounds of seed, sown broadcast, if 

 every seed made a plant. The germination of alfalfa 

 seeds is not usually perfect; often with the best 

 seed only about 75 per cent will germinate the first 

 year. And not every seed will be covered right for 

 germination. Thus if we allow half to perish for 

 lack of right planting we will come to a need of four 

 pounds of seed per acre to give an ideally perfect 

 stand. 



As a matter 'of fact this amount is often sown. 

 Where one desires to grow alfalfa seed a thin stand 

 is better than a thick stand and four pounds of seed 

 will suffice. Of course one must be sure of his seed- 

 bed and of his seed if he ventures to use so thin a 

 seeding. And he ought to be sure that the land is 

 inoculated. On inoculated soil a thin seeding will 

 give a better stand than a thick seeding will on un- 

 inoculated soil. 



The Ohio experiment station has made an inter- 



