plowed in, and shortly before sowing the alfalfa they apply more or less
of phosphoric acid and potash, which is usually incorporated in the
surface soil by the harrow. On some soils, as in some parts of Florida,
two successive crops of cow peas should be plowed under before sowing
alfalfa. When farmyard manure can be used in fertilizing those leechy
soils it is well when it can be applied on the surface in a somewhat
decomposed form and also kept near the surface during the subsequent
cultivation given when preparing the seed-bed. In the North it is best
applied in the autumn or winter, and in the South in the summer. But on
loam soils with a reasonably retentive subsoil, the better way to apply
farmyard manure is to make a heavy application of the same to the crop
preceding the alfalfa. It has thus become incorporated with the soil,
and many weed seeds in it will have sprouted before sowing the alfalfa.
The results from applying manure on soil somewhat stiff and not highly
productive have been noticeably marked. This may have been owing in part
to the mechanical influence of the manure on the land. The relation
between the free application of farmyard manure and abundant growth in
alfalfa is so marked in all, or nearly all, soils west of the
Mississippi River that in many instances better crops will be obtained
from poor soils well manured than from good soils unmanured. The
relation between abundant manuring and soil inoculation is worthy of
more careful study, in the judgment of the author, than has yet been
accorded to it.

Fine pulverization of the surface soil is advantageous when sowing
alfalfa, because of the influence which it has upon the retention of
moisture near the surface, and upon the exclusion from the soil of an
overabundance of light. It is in clay soils, of course, that this
condition is most difficult to secure. The agencies in securing it are
the cultivator, the harrow and the roller, and in many instances the
influences of weather, after the land has been plowed, especially when
plowed in the autumn prior to spring seeding.

Moistness in the seed-bed sufficient to promptly sprout the seed is a
prime essential, but it is very much more important where the seasons
are dry than where the lack of rain is but little feared. When the seed
is sown after summerfallow or cultivated crops, it is usually considered
preferable to make the seed-bed without using the plow, but to this
there may be some excep