DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS 221 



tionable planting to precede alfalfa. These have usually- 

 taken too much of the land's moisture, especially if the 

 season has been somewhat dry, to permit a prosperous 

 beginning of the plants from fall sown seed. Millet, oats 

 or cowpeas are the best crops to precede, i. e. for the first 

 trial The plowing for this precedmg crop should be 

 deep. In clay land a subsoil plow (the kind which loosens 

 but does not throw the subsoil to the surface) should 

 follow. It is extremely important that a dressing of 

 stable manure be plowed under for this preceding crop. 

 The seed bed should be carefully prepared, and under 

 favorable conditions. Working the ground when too wet 

 would make it impossible to secure a proper seed bed 

 later when preparing for alfalfa. 



c He neglects to prepare the alfalfa seed bed prop- 

 erly. He should begin disking and harrowing as soon as 

 the preparatory crop is off the ground, and continue 

 this at intervals of ten or fifteen days until time for sow- 

 ing, when the soil should be as fine as for an onion bed. 



d He uses poor seed; seed that is infertile, or adul- 

 terated with weed seeds — undesirable and unreliable in 

 every way, 



2. Dying out the second year, which in most instances 

 is due to one of two causes, viz. : neglect to plow under 

 stable manure for the preceding crop, or pasturing alfalfa 

 in its first year. Not an animal should ])t turned on an 

 alfalfa field for pasture until the second or, preferably, 

 the third year. Another cause is disturbance of the soil 

 and plants by severe freezing. This may often be pre- 

 vented in a degree by a light top-dressing of manure in 

 December. 



