ALFALFA IN CROP ROTATION. 



With some men alfalfa is the best money crop 

 that can be grown. Naturally these men desire to 

 keep their land continuously in alfalfa. They prac- 

 tice something like the following system : After the 

 last crop of hay is cut in the fall the alfalfa stubble 

 is plowed deeply and fitted and sown back to alfalfa 

 in the spring. Or the alfalfa is mown off in May 

 or early June, again in July, and is at once broken 

 and sown to alfalfa in late July or early August. In 

 some parts of Maryland alfalfa winters well the first 

 year but kills the second winter. Thus they sow it 

 each year and declare that no crop pays so well as 

 forage for dairy cows. 



There may doubtless be instances where this is 

 good practice for a time. It is true, nevertheless, 

 that soils are better off to have a change of crops 

 now and then, and crops are certainly better for 

 fresh soils. While alfalfa is a soil enricher in the 

 sense of adding stores of nitrogen it is a soil deplet- 

 er so far as phosphorus and potash and lime go. 

 More than that, there are hidden influences that we 

 do not understand that make soils unfriendly to 

 plants that have grown in them too long. It is not- 

 able that some of the very oldest books on agricul- 

 ture in referring to alfalfa say: "It endures for 

 many years and afterward may be plowed up and 

 the land sown to corn. Land should not be sown 



(237) 



