may
sometimes be a more suitable preparation than plowing and harrowing.

Friability in the seed-bed is important when the soils are heavy. The
influences which promote it are the presence of humus, liberal
cultivation, and sometimes weather influences, as rain and frost. Unless
heavy clay soils are brought into this condition, the roots of the
alfalfa will not be able to penetrate the soil quickly enough or deeply
enough in search of food.

As has been intimated, it will not avail to sow alfalfa in soils not
sufficiently drained naturally or otherwise. Usually, good alfalfa soils
have sufficient drainage naturally, the subsoil being sufficiently open
to admit of the percolation of water down into the subsoil with
sufficient quickness. But good crops of alfalfa may be grown on subsoils
so retentive that underdrainage is necessary to facilitate the escape of
an excess of moisture with sufficient quickness. The question has been
raised as to whether the roots of the plants will be much liable to
enter and choke the drains at the joints between the tiles. While it
would not be safe to say that this would never happen, it is not likely
to happen, owing to the character of the root growth. Where too much
water is held near the surface, in climates characterized by alternate
freezing and thawing in winter, the young plants will certainly be
thrown out through the heaving of the soil.

The subsoiling of lands not sufficiently open below will be greatly
helpful to the growth of alfalfa. This may also be true of lands not
over-retentive naturally, but made so by the treading of the animals for
successive years on the soil under the furrow when plowing the land. In
some conditions, without subsoiling thus, the growing of alfalfa will
not be successful, but in doing this work, care should be taken not to
bring up raw subsoil to the surface. In subsoiling for alfalfa, usually
the more deeply the ground can be stirred by the subsoiler, the better
will be the results that will follow. Subsoiling is particularly helpful
to the growing of alfalfa on many of the clay soils of the South.

In the far West, toward the mountains, and probably within the same, are
areas in which excellent stands of alfalfa may be obtained by simply
sowing the seed on surfaces stirred with a disk or with a heavy harrow
weighted while it is being driven over the land. The implements should
be driven first one way and then the other, and, of course, the seed