HABIT OF GROWTH. 85 
plants will stand on the ground. One by one the 
weaker plants will be crowded out till at last the 
strongest plants will gain their normal position 
when there will be a plant for each square foot of 
surface in very deep, rich soils of the West, and 
these big plants with roots as large as one’s ankle; 
or there will be four or more plants to the square 
foot, as in good land in Nebraska or Kansas; or 
there will be a plant for each 4”, as, in thinner, 
poorer and shallower soils in Ohio and the East. 
Alfalfa roots will not stand close together in any al- 
falfa soil, be sure of that. Nevertheless it 1s good 
to start them thick, since spare alfalfa plants are 
better than weeds in the field. 
Roots.—Alfalfa roots are very tough, strong and 
hard to cut. Penetrating the soil so deeply they 
make drainage channels when they decay and thus 
make the soil more alive. They are hard to plow. 
Once cut off they do not sprout again, though the top 
part if kept in moist earth will send out new fibers 
and may grow. Alfalfa is not hard to destroy by 
plowing; once cut off and cultivated a few times it 
dies. 
The large roots are not the ones that feed. The 
small fibrous root hairs penetrate each tiny crevice 
of the earth and absorb the soil moisture and thus 
drink in their food. Going to great depths they are 
able to bring up mineral substances that may have 
leached down there. They are able to find moisture 
when the surface soil is parched with drouth. 
The Bacteria.—Alfalfa roots absorb all that is in 
