r are fineness, cleanness, moistness and firmness.
Ordinarily black loam soils, sandy loam soils, sandy soils, humus soils
and the volcanic ash soils of the West are made sufficiently fine
without great labor. Clay soils may call for the free use of the harrow
and roller used in some sort of alternation before they are sufficiently
pulverized. Excessive fineness in pulverization of these soils is also
to be guarded against in rainy climates, lest they run together, but
this condition is present far less frequently than the opposite.

Cleanness can usually be secured when clovers follow cultivated crops by
the labor given to these when the land is not plowed in preparing it for
the clovers. In other instances the longer the land is plowed before
putting in the seed and the more frequently the surface is stirred
during the growing part of the season, the cleaner will the seed-bed be.

In the spring the land is usually sufficiently moist for receiving the
seed. In the autumn moisture is frequently deficient. Stirring the
surface of the soil occasionally with the harrow will materially
increase the moisture content in the soil near the surface, even in the
absence of rain. As crimson clover is usually sown in the late summer
and alfalfa is frequently sown in the autumn, it may sometimes be
necessary to give much attention to securing sufficient moisture to
insure germination in the seed.

When clovers are sown in the spring on land which is also growing a
winter crop, no preparation is necessary in preparing the land for
receiving the seed. On some soils the ground becomes sufficiently
honeycombed through the agency of water and frost to put it in a fine
condition for receiving the seed. When this condition is not present,
the seed will usually grow if sown amid the grain and covered with the
harrow.

When clovers are sown on sod land for the purpose of renewing pastures,
disking them will prepare them for receiving the seed. The extent of the
disking will depend on such conditions as the toughness of the sod and
the nature of the soil. Usually disking once when the frost is out a
little way from the surface, and then disking across at an angle will
suffice, and in some instances disking one way only will be sufficient.
On newly cleared lands the clovers will usually grow without any
stirring of the land before sowing, or any harrowing after sowing.
Clovers that are grown chiefly for pasture, as the small white, the
Jap