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crop. The rotation may oe corn, oats and peas or potatoes and 

 alfalfa. But whatever the rotation, successful alfalfa growers will 

 provide for a clean seed bed. 



In the next place the alfalfa grower will supply a generous 

 amount of lime. You will at once ask how much lime should be used 

 and what kind of lime should be used. These questions are often 

 raised by men who are confronted with them. The amount of lime 

 will vary with the soil. The heavier, the more ; the lighter, the less 

 lime. But for light, sandy soils we should need at least a ton of 

 lime to the acre, on the basis of burned lime. I have seen splendid 

 alfalfa grown with not more than a ton to the acre. On soils that 

 are not lime-stone soils it would be safer to apply possibly one and 

 one-half tons. Heavy clay soils that have not been limed for sev- 

 eral years should have fifty bushels to the acre. Some of it applied 

 before plowing and some after plowing would give the best results. 

 As to the form of lime, that is whether it be ground limestone, 

 or slaked lime it is immaterial, provided enough be used, except that 

 for very heavy clay soils, I should prefer to use slaked lime. For 

 medium soils it does not make a great deal of difference. One ton 

 of freshly burned lime, properly slaked, will go practically twice 

 as far as one ton of ground limestone. 



As to chemical composition, magnesian lime is, for practical pur- 

 poses, as good as non-magnesian lime. It will give just as good re- 

 sults, except on light sandy soils. 



Having applied the lime the alfalfa grower is confronted with 

 the next question as to the plant food to use. Should he use stable 

 manure, or commercial fertilizer, or both; and how much is he to 

 use? In our earlier experiments we used barnyard manure. We 

 secured beneficial results wherever barnyard manure was used, but 

 we also found that the growth of grass and other plants was stimu- 

 lated and the crowding out of the alfalfa proceeded in a more rapid 

 way. In our work now we prefer not to use any manure at all 

 except for the preceding crop. We find that a direct application 

 of barnyard manure is not desirable. We now depend entirely on 

 commercial fertilizer. We used to employ a mixture composed of 

 equal parts of bone meal, acid phosphate, and muriate of potash. 

 Because of the increased cost of bone meal we find that it is very 

 much cheaper to use a mixture of acid phosphate and muriate of 

 potash. You will find that for almost every soil this mixture is 

 cheaper and quite as effective. It consists of ^oo pounds of acid 

 phosphate and loo pounds muriate, applied at the rate of 400 

 pounds per acre. In the case of light, sandy soil it would be better 

 to use 150 pounds instead of 100 pounds muriate. We make prac- 

 tically the same application every year. The material is not costly. 

 Acid phosphate may be bought for $12.00 or $13.00 per ton and 

 muriate for about $40.00 or $41.00 per ton. 



The fertilizer cost for the alfalfa crop, considering the bene- 

 fits derived, is therefore a minor tjiatter. The crop gets its nitrogen 

 from the air and we do not need to supply it. I might say, though, 



