May, 1910. 
—— 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
27 
THE FARM. 
Harvesting Lucerne for Seed. 
In harvesting alfalfa for seed, cutting 
should done when the greater proportion 
of seeds are hard, but not sufficiently 
ripe to shell. At this stage a majority 
of the pods are turned a dark brown 
color, and the seeds are fully developed. 
Frequently the cutting can be raked into 
windrows after two hours if the weather 
is drying, and in two or three hours more 
put into cocks and let stand from twenty- 
four to forty-eight hours, as the weather 
may justify. It should, however, be well 
cured and thoroughly dry when put in 
the stack, or there is danger of heating, 
and stack-heating seriously injures the 
vitality of the seed, It is not uncom- 
mon, if extremely ripe, to leave the 
cutting in the swath only an hour or a 
half-hour then stack, and let stand for 
autumn or later threshing. If allowed to 
stand in the stack for about thirty days, 
the entire mass goes through-a sweating 
and curing process which makes the 
threshing easier, while less of the seed is 
left in the straw than would be if it had 
not been  stack-cured. In western 
Kansas many seed raisers cut their seed 
crop with a self-binder, put the sheaves 
in shocks the same day, and thresh in 
about ten days, or put into a stack to 
await a convenient threshing time. They 
claim to procure 20 per cent. more of the 
seed in this way than if they cut with the 
ordinay mower. Others cut with a 
mower haying a dropping attachment 
which leaves the alfalfa in small bundles 
at the will of the driver, in the centre of 
the swath, and these are ‘straddled’ by the 
team and the wheels of the mower in the 
consequent rounds. These bunches are 
left for two or three days and then stacked. 
There is little, if any, danger from mould 
or spontaneous combustion in stacks of 
alfalfa cut for seed, but there is danger of 
heating in the stack if stacked when 
damp. If bright, clean seed is expected, 
the stacks must be well topped with 
slough grass, covered with tarpaulins or 
boards, or given other protection. It is 
better still to put the alfalfa intended for 
seed intoa barn. One western Kansas 
farmer reports thathe used a self-binding 
harvester, shocked the sheaves like those 
of grain, let them stand ten days, and then 
put them in a mow, with no bad results, 
Work on Rainy Days. 
The desirability of introducing method 
into farm work is never more noticable 
than on rainy days. On a well managed 
farm, there is no time for. idling, each 
man haying plenty to do, whether wet or 
fine. 
* It is a great advantage to keep a list of 
jobs to be done on rainy days always 
hanging up inan accessible position. It 
should be.written on stiff white paste- 
board, ina large, round, distinct hand, 
so that every hired man can read it Al] 
the men are instructed, whenever rain 
comes on, instead of standing idle under 
sheds or in burnes, to repair at once to 
the workshop, and commence on such 
work as may be named first on the list, 
or may havea pencil mark drawn under 
it, or which they may think needs doing 
first, according to the circumstances of the 
case. 
The following is a sample of a list of 
this kind. 
1, Clean and sweep floors of outhouses 
barnes, shop, etc. 
2, Clean all tools, harrows, ploughs, 
cultivators, waggons, hoes, spades and 
everything you can think of. 
3. Put all tools accurately in their 
allotted places, if any have been left out. 
4;Oil with petroleum all tools made of 
wood or partly wood, as ploughs, harrows, 
waggons, rakes, spades, etc. 
5. Clean and oil harness. 
6. Sprout and assort potatoes. 
apples in winter or spring. 
7. Grind hoes or spades. 
8, Clean henhouse and whitewash. it. 
9, Shell corn. 
During wet weather, when not raining 
repair board and rail fences, gates, etc, ; 
Assort 
pile manure, scrape barnyard, spade grass 
around trees, etc. 
Life of Lucerne. 
Alfalfa (Lucerne) is very long-lived ; 
fields in Mexico, it is claimed, have been 
continuously productive without replant- 
ing for over two hundred years, and 
others in France are known to have 
lts 
the United States is 
probably from ten to twenty-five years, 
although there is a field in New York 
that has been mown successively for over 
sixty years. It is not unlikely that under 
its normal condition and with normal 
flourished for more than a century. 
usual- life in 
care it would well-nigh be, as it is called, 
everlasting. 
Cultivation of the Potato. 
By the Editor of the ‘Queensland Agri- 
cultural Journal.’ 
(Continued from Mareh issue.) 
— Disease of Potatoes. — 
It is perhaps not stating too much to 
say that a very large percentage af disease 
is due to specify causes, both of which 
could be prevented. 
Unfortunately, the means of prevention 
do not generally commend thomselvyas to 
the majority of Queensland potato 
growers. An important fact which has 
been. observed is, that when diseased 
potatoes are planted, after the crop haa 
been lifted, the remains of the old seed 
potatoes, when brought to the surface of 
the ground, will produce a crop of fungus 
bearing myraids of spores, If such old 
seed potatoes are kept buried in goil until 
