56 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
low it. It is not a bad practice to cover the lucerne field with a 
coat of coal ashes or poor sand, merely to keep down the weeds, 
where this can easily be done. 
The soil in which it is intended to sow lucerne seed should be 
well prepared. It should be highly manured for the two or three 
preceding crops and deeply ploughed, if not trenched. It should 
be perfectly clean, and for this purpose two successive crops of 
turnips are most effectual. The turnips should be fed off with 
sheep. In the month of March, the land having been ploughed 
flat and well harrowed, a very small quantity of barley, not above 
a bushel to the acre, may be sown, or rather drilled on the 
ground, and at the same time from 30 to 40 lbs. of lucerne seed 
sown broadcast and both harrowed in and lightly rolled. If 
the land will not bear to be laid flat without water-furrows, it 
will be useless to sow lucerne in it. 
As the crop comes up it must be carefully weeded: no expense 
must be spared to do this effectually, for success depends upon 
it. When the barley is reaped, the stubble, which will probably 
be strong, should be pulled up by the hand hoe, or by harrowing, 
if the plants of lucerne be strong, and at all events the ground 
must be cleared of weeds. It must not be fed off with sheep; 
they would bite too near the crown. Lucerne should always be 
cut as soon as the flower is formed. If it is kept clear of weeds 
the first year, there will be little difficulty with it afterwards, 
when the roots have become strong. The second year the lucerne 
will be fit to cut very early, and in a favorable season it may be 
cut four or five times. After each cutting it is useful to draw heavy- 
harrows over the land, or an instrument made on purpose resem- 
bling harrow teeth, the teeth of which are flat, and cutting the 
soil like coulters. It will not injure the plants, even if it divide 
the crown of the root, but it will destroy grass and weeds. Liquid 
manure, which consists of the urine of cattle and drainings of 
dunghills, is often spread over the lucerne immediately after 
it has been mown, and much invigorates the next growth; but if 
the land is rich to a good depth this is scarcely necessary. The 
lucerne will grow and thrive from seven to twelve years, when 
it will begin to wear out, and, in spite of weeding, the grass will 
get the upper hand of it. It should then be plowed up, all the 
roots carefully collected and laid in a heap with dung and lime 
to rot, and a course of regular tillage should succeed. The same 
land should not be sown with lucerne again in less than ten or 
twelve years, after a regular course of cropping and manuring. 
Cattle fed upon lucerne thrive better than on any other green 
food. Horses in particular can work hard upon it without any 
corn, provided it be slow work. Cows give plenty of good milk 
