Late in winter or early in spring the land may be plowed. It should be broken deep and as soon as the land is ready to work, it should be harrowed to a good seed bed.
Alfalfa wants a firm seed bed, so that the little rootlets find an unbroken way down into the moist earth beneath.
At a little later than time for sowing oats, say the last week in March, after danger of hard freezing is over, sow the seed. A peck of alfalfa seed, fifteen pounds, is enough to the acre; more is waste. There are in a bushel 14,448,000 individual alfalfa seeds. To sow fifteen pounds per acre would put on eighty-three seeds to the square foot. Twelve plants to the square foot are all that will grow to maturity.
The seed may be sown broadcast and harrowed in. It may be sown broadcast and covered by drilling in after it a bushel to the acre of spring barley, an excellent nurse crop. The beardless barley is the best. Or a half bushel of oats sown on an acre will serve as a nurse crop, only that in this case the oats must be cut for hay as soon as bloom appears and before they lodge.
The land after seeding must be left smooth so that the mower may be run over it close to the ground.
There may be sown fertilizer with the alfalfa to help the manure and it will probably be well repaid.
After the alfalfa is sown, if the land is very dry and cloddy it should be rolled. If it is moist, a plank drag should make it smooth and level.
At the time of sowing, if some earth from an old alfalfa field can be had, it is well to make it fine and sow it over the field at the rate of about 100 pounds to the acre, or soil on which sweet clover (mellilotus) has grown. The object of this is to transfer some of the bacteria that thrive on alfalfa roots to the new field. It is as the housewife puts yeast in her bread.
However, if the manure has been put into the soil and it is not sour, the seed itself will carry enough bacteria to shortly innoculate the field. These bacteria increase very rapidly in soils filled with humus.
A good test of whether a field will grow alfalfa or not is to observe whether it contains earthworms (fish worms). If it does not the condition is wrong for alfalfa culture.