The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1928-04-26
ALFALFASEED BED
VERY IMPORTANT
Keep it Growing After 1t Has
Been Nicely Started Is a
Big Problem
IS A PARTICULAR CROP
Will Pay Best Dividend on
Farm Following Plan of
Acre for Every Cow

when my alfalfa came up, I
had a perfect stand. Later on in
the summer, it was quite thin and
spotted" is the usual remark of
many farmers at our alfalfa meet
ings, who have failed to secure a
successful field of alfalfa. Keeping
it growing after it once has start
ed is the most important of a real
healthy and profitable field. There
are many things like lack of prop
err incubation, sour or acid soil,
growth of summer grasses, weeds,
hot winds, poor seed, too loose
seed bed, soil lacking in the neces-
sary fertility and there are many
other causes that would so effect
an alfalfa or sweet clover field,
newly seeded, but in most cases it
was because the seed bed was not
firm enough.
Taking it for granted that the
soil is suitable in fertility, high,
well drained land that grows good
corn in even wet years, that the
soil was tested for acidity and if it
was acid, lime of some form was
applied in sufficient amount to
clean up the acid and leave enough
lime for the alfalfa plants to make
the hay, as it takes at Ieast 40
pounds per ton of hay, then that
the seed or the soil was inoculat-
ed with the proper bacteria for al
falfa or sweet clover, then the
one big thing to get a good stand
is firm seed bed with the packer
mulcher.
Corn ground or any clean land
that was in cultivated crop last
year, should not be plowed the
spring you are seeding alfalfa or
sweet clover on it, just disc it up
good and drag it and roll it good
and firm. If a nurse crop is to
be used, don't use over a bushel of
oats, wheat or barley, and get the
nurse crop off as soon as possible,
before the dry weather comes. Oats
at the rate of one bushel for
nurse crop for either alfalfa or
sweet clover, then cut just as it
heads out or at the dow state, is
the very best nurse crop for be-
ginners.
If alfalfa is to be seeded alone,
the ground should be worked and
firmed down, killing out all the
weeds and grasses before seeding,
then seed at a rainy spell, and
roll The ground before seeding and
after, with some sort of corrugat-
ed land roller or packer. This roll
ing and firming the seed bed is nee
ecessary whether alfalfa or sweet
clover is seeded alone or with a
Nurse crop.
Knowing that alfalfa is the most
profitable of any crop one can
grow, it seems foolish to take
chance that natural conditions will
come about to properly take care
OF the new seeding of alfalfa I'M
der all conditions. In this case, 1
refer particularly to the frming of
the seedbed. During many springs
after alfalfa has been seeded, it
will not rain for two or three
weeks, and it seems that the more
the soil has been disced and pull
verified fine and left bus. the
easier it is for the alfalfa to die
out after it once gets started. Of
course, sowing loo heavy d nurse
crop and the lack of rainfall or
sufficient moisture in the ground at
the time or soon after the nurse
crop is taken off, causes many
good stands to thin out and some
times die out almost entirely.
Firming the seeded with land
roller or packer, is really the most
(Cnntinued ON Paca EourA