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.  But disking seems to be good whenever in the year the soil is dry enough to take it well.

Suburban Alfalfa Patch.

How can we rid the alfalfa of weeds?  As we are obliged to hire help, and do not succeed in getting the hay cared for until we have mostly stalks without leaves, I have put the cow on it to pasture it off.

The cow knows how to handle it, but you will not get as much alfalfa as if you cut and carried it to her.  If you cut sooner you will get rid of many plants which are propagated by the seeds which they produce, and you will also get better hay, more leaves and fewer stalks.  Cut it about the time it begins to bloom, not waiting for the full bloom to appear.

Alfalfa and Bermuda.

I have land which was seeded to alfalfa some 15 years ago and has been pastured continuously until it was almost all Bermuda.  I had it thoroughly plowed, disk harrowed and sowed to oats; disk harrowed in, and drag harrowed.  After cutting for hay this year I intend putting it in Egyptian corn in rows, so it can be cultivated to get rid of Bermuda.  I have also been advised to plow the land immediately after harvesting corn and let it lie until next January and then plow and sow to barley and alfalfa as I wish to grow alfalfa.  Kindly let me know if method is right.  The land is sandy loam and under irrigation.

Whether you will fully succeed against Bermuda grass or not is doubtful.  It is probable, however, that you can reduce the Bermuda so that other cultivated crops can be continuously grown.  Common experience is that Bermuda will hold on unless you have hard freezing of the ground to a considerable depth, as they have in the northern States.  The best use that you can make of land infested with Bermuda is to get as good a stand as you can of alfalfa and let the alfalfa fight for itself.  The combination of alfalfa and Bermuda grass makes very good hay or pasturage.  We should, however, sow the alfalfa alone and not handicap it by sowing with barley.  The Bermuda will smile at that advice.  Egyptian corn can be planted in rows, 2 1/2 to 3 feet between the rows to admit of easy cultivation