in a warm and late autumn that flowering will occur,
and lateral buds start, but the growth should not be clipped unless
there remains time to secure a new growth large enough to afford winter
protection. This is likewise true of a late growth in an old alfalfa
field.

Owners of soils that are not well adapted to the alfalfa plant will
find top-dressing with manure helpful to alfalfa fields when made in
the fall. The severity of winters in a moist climate is responsible for
some failures. If the soil is not porous, heaving will occur. A
dressing of manure, given late in the fall, and preferably during the
first hard freeze, will prevent alternate thawings and freezings in
some degree. The manure should have been made from feed containing no
seeds of annual grasses or other weed pests.

Rolling in the spring does not serve to settle heaved alfalfa plants.
The tap-roots are long, and when they have been lifted by action of
frost, they cannot be driven back into place.

It is believed that the permanence of an alfalfa seeding may be
increased by the use of mineral fertilizers in the early spring. In the
case of one alfalfa field of fifteen years' standing in the east, the
fertilizers were applied immediately after the first hay crop of the
year was removed. Three hundred and fifty pounds of acid phosphate and
50 pounds of muriate of potash per acre is the mixture recommended.
When old alfalfa plants do not stand thickly enough on the ground,
grasses and other weeds come in readily. They can be kept under partial
control by use of a spring-tooth harrow, the points being made narrow
so that no ridging will occur. The harrow should be used immediately
after the harvest, and will not injure the alfalfa.

It does not pay to use alfalfa for pasturage in our eastern states
because the practice shortens the life of the seeding.

Alfalfa makes a seed crop in profitable amount only in our semi-arid
regions. No attempt to produce a seed crop in the east should be made.

CHAPTER VII

GRASS SODS

Value of Sods.--The character of the sods is a faithful index of the
condition of the soil in any region adapted to grass. The value of
heavy sods to a soil cannot be overestimated. They not only give to a
farm a prosperous appearance, but our country's agriculture would be on
a much safer basis if heavy coverings of grass were more universal. We
do not hold the legumes in too high esteem, but the emphasis placed
upon their a