SEEDING AND CUTTING. 203 
success whatever. They shade too much and 
smother out the alfalfa. 
Fall rye sown in the spring is advocated by a New 
Jersey man who used it thus nearly 100 years ago. 
I have not tested it, but have my suspicions. 
Alfalfa may be sown with corn at the time of last 
cultivation in July. Thus sown it makes almost a 
stand, never quite a perfect stand. The corn robs 
the land a little too much of moisture to allow the 
alfalfa to get rightly rooted. There is also a little 
too much shade. Should alfalfa seed ever become 
cheap again it would pay to sow it in corn for soil 
improvement, even if it was turned over next year 
in late May and again planted to corn. 
Where Are Nurse Crops Permissible?—In Ohio, 
Illinois, Indiana and probably Iowa and Missouri 
a nurse crop may be often as good a thing as it is 
on Woodland Farm. Much depends upon whether 
it is intelligently used. To sow grain thickly and 
to let it ripen on the land may very likely prove 
most injurious to the alfalfa. If a man knows his 
failings, if he is too greedy to cut the nurse crap 
at the right time, or too careless, he had better 
not sow one at all, but sow the alfalfa alone. 
West of the Missouri River it is usually too dry 
to permit the use of a nurse crop. South of the Ohio 
River it is safer and better to sow alone in the fall 
or mid-summer with no nurse crop. 
It is most tempting when one sees a magnificent 
growth of oats or barley on the land to say, ‘‘I must 
let that ripen; it is too fine to cut down for hay’’; 
