256 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



The Alfalfa Harroiv. — There is a special alfalfa 

 harrow made like a disk harrow only with circles of 

 sharp spikes that are supposed to penetrate the 

 ground and loosen it, throwing out the grass 

 roots without injuring the alfalfa. The theory of 

 this implement is good but in practice it does not 

 work so well. There is difficulty in getting it to 

 penetrate deeply and if it throws out grass it is 

 speedily wound up on the axle so that I am not at 

 all certain that the machine will supersede the ordi- 

 nary disk harrow. 



The Spring Tooth Harrow. — Where Kentucky 

 bluegrass is coming in, or bermuda or other grasses, 

 after all the best thing probably to rake them out is 

 the spring toothed harrow. One needs a strong har- 

 row, not too wide, and weighted well, when if the 

 alfalfa is well established and strongly rooted it 

 will be relieved of its encumbering grasses without 

 being materially harmed itself. Or the spring toOth 

 harrow may be used after the disk harrow. 



A Deep Tilling Machine. — The Spalding deep till- 

 ing machine is the invention of a Californian and 

 was first used there in plowing heavy adobe soils. ' It 

 is essentially a very large and strong disk plow hav- 

 ing two 24" disks set to run in the one furrow. With 

 this plow one can readily plow 12" to 16" deep. The 

 forward disk throws down the upper surface soil, 

 with its trash and weed seeds. The following disk 

 throws over this top earth 8" of the subsoil, bring- 

 ing up earth free from weed seeds. All the soil 

 turned is very efficiently pulverized. In certain soils 



