For a small piece, you might get a better stand by
using a light mulch of disintegrated coarse manure or even straw,
scattering it after the sowing, but for a large acreage this would
involve too much labor. It is not desirable to work in much manure or
other coarse stuff at the time of sowing the seed, but you can make a
light surface application after the plant has made a start.
Cultivating Alfalfa.
When is the best time to cultivate alfalfa, and how often during the
season is it advantageous to do so? Which is the best implement to use?
Cultivated alfalfa is a term applied to alfalfa sown in rows and allowed
to grow in narrow bands with cultivated land between, and the irrigation
is then done in a furrow in the narrow cultivated strip. This will give
thriftier growth and perhaps more hay to the acre than flooded,
broad-casted alfalfa, but it will cost so much more that the acre profit
would probably be less. This is an intensive culture of alfalfa, which
is still to be tested out in California, if any one should be inclined
to do it. Some one-cow suburbanite would be in condition to try the
scheme first. Probably you refer to disking, and for that an ordinary
disk is used with the disks set pretty straight to reduce the side
cutting, and this is done at different times of the year by different
growers. By doing it when the ground gets dry in the early spring much
of the foul stuff is cut out before the alfalfa starts strongly.
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