RECENT PLOWING NOT DESIRABLE
It is seen that plowing for alfalfa just preceding the seeding is not recommended. Plowing leaves the sub-surface too loose, thus depriving the roots of a sufficiently firm footing and making a full sowing more liable to harm from freezing and thawing, and the spring sowing to harm from a dry summer. The necessity of the most perfect surface conditions cannot be to often emphasized, and this too includes considerable compactness rather than a too light or ashy condition. There must be no clods, no stiff and stubborn humps.
If alfalfa is to follow clover, and to be seeded in the fall, the sod should be broken early after the clover is harvested and each day’s plowing harrowed that day; then the field disked and cross-disked and harrowed again. After that it should be disked, lapping half, every ten or fifteen days until time for seeding. Alfalfa may follow timothy if the sod is not too old and stubborn, and it may be treated the same as clover sod.