SUMMARY OF ALFALFA SOWING. 513 
the crowns; it seemed not to do so. We harrowed 
the alfalfa in two directions, tearing up every inch 
of the surface soil, destroying grass and making a 
soil mulch. The result was little less than marvel- 
ous. Even the old alfalfa weakened and thinned by 
the previous year’s bad treatment came to life in 
large part, thickened up by stooling and seemed too 
good to break. I do not know what place the tractor 
has in farm economy; its weight may preclude its 
use for spring plowing, but it has evidently a great 
field of use on an alfalfa farm. It will plow in the 
fall, using the deep tilling plows; it will with ease 
keep the fields in garden-like tilth, free from grasses 
and weeds. In the South, on the prairie lands, this 
combination should have an especially good field 
and result in great good. In fact, the advent of this 
broad-sweeping alfalfa harrow with the tractor to 
draw it seems to me to mark the final completion of 
the necessary means to alfalfa growing in the region 
east of the Missouri River. It should be of nearly 
equal use west of that line. 
The Bierwagen Method, or the Buried Crown in 
Alfalfa—Daniel Bierwagen is a picturesque individ- 
ual in Stanley Co., 8S. D. From his own observation 
and experience he has evolved a new. system of al- 
falfa culture, especially applicable to cold and arid 
regions. This is the system of the buried crown. In 
studying the native legumes of his region, he ob- 
served that they grew thriftily where the wash of 
the hills continually tended to deposit silt, and more 
deeply bury the crowns. Acting on this hint, he 
