138 CLOVERS 



obtained by summerfallowing the land, by growing 

 a root crop or a crop of corn or any of the non- 

 saccharine sorghums. When the seed is spring 

 sown, this preparation must be given the year previ- 

 ously, but when autumn sown, it may be given the 

 same season. In preparing the land thus, the aim 

 should be to make the surface as clean as possible, 

 rather than to get weed seeds out of the lower strata 

 of the cultivated soil, in which they will likely perish 

 before the field sown to alfalfa is broken up again. 

 Summerfallowing makes an excellent preparation 

 for the land, because of the fine opportunity which 

 it furnishes for cleaning the same perfectly and 

 leveling it off properly. The excellent condition in 

 which it puts the seed-bed, viewed from the stand- 

 point of the duration of the years of cropping that 

 are likely to follow, would seem to more than justify 

 such preparation of the land. The outcome may 

 more than justify the loss of the crop for one sea- 

 son when thus summerfallowing the land. But it 

 may not be necessary to lose the production of one 

 .season whether the seed is sown spring or autumn, 

 as the summerfallowing in the North may follow the 

 pasturing off of some crop, and in the South the 

 interval for fallowing the land may be sufficiently 

 long after the harvesting of an early winter grain 

 crop, before sowing the seed in the autumn. (See 

 page 136.) 



When sowing the seed autumn or spring, on land 

 that is filled with weed seeds near the surface, it is 

 frequently better to defer sowing the seed for some 

 weeks to give time for sprouting many of these than 



