SUMMARY OF ALFALFA SOWING. 501 



and 2 feet high, connecting the deep furrows be- 

 tween the beds with our open ditches, we might grow 

 alfalfa, I hoped. It was impossible to do this work 

 before the land became thoroughly dry, since plows 

 would not scour in the half-dried clay. In July 

 came opportunity: the land was dry. With large 

 disc plows heavily weighted and drawn by six mules 

 we broke the land, turning it up into beds 2 rods 

 wide. The furrows I cleaned out with a road ma- 

 chine. "With a great deal of labor I made these beds 

 nicely rounded and smooth, like the best turnpikes. 

 Rains came and the clods, nearly as hard as stone, 

 dissolved and we got a seedbed. 



On part of the field we put a heavy application 

 of manure from the old stable; on another part I 

 used phosphate fertilizers liberally. In October I 

 sowed the seed. Inoculation is natural in the buck- 

 shot soils. The result was beautiful, nearly perfect 

 alfalfa. Seldom have I seen better anywhere in the 

 world, although I have seen it grow taller on some 

 soils. The astonishing thing was that we could never 

 trace the line where we had put the manure, nor 

 find any evidence of the other fertilizers. 



This was one place where alfalfa through its bac- 

 teria received from the air all the nitrogen that it 

 needed. A marvelous thing was that the alfalfa 

 grew as vigorously in the bottom of our dead furrow, 

 where the soil had been removed to a depth of about 

 18", as it did anywhere, and inoculation even there 

 was immediate. Naturally, after a time the best al- 

 falfa was on the ridges, as the furrows were slowly 

 emptied after hard rains. 



