THE RURAL WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 489, 7 August 1912, Page 3

THE RURAL WORLD.

TO START LUCERNE. Excellent advice, concisely put, on starting lucerne, ia given aa follows in a bulletin got out by the Norfh Dakota Experimenal Station: "The ground selected should be well manured, ploughed well and planted to corn or potatoes. This rnaisa or potato crop should be kept very clean during the period of growth. I wish to emphasise this point in keeping the land clean. The extra labour in doing this will pay for itself many times over, the following season when lucerne ia to be grown. In the early spring of the year following, the maize stubble or potato land should be disced. Later on the soil should be worked occasionally until late in May. This working soil serves two puropses, The main thing ia to kill off the young weeds which will germinate during April and May. While cultivation helped a great deal In keeping the previous cultivated crop in a clean condition, yet cne invariably finds plenty of weeds coming up the next soring. We find it quite important to keep the new lucerne crop as free from weeds aa possible, aa the young lucerne plants are not good weed fighters.

ROTATION OF CROPS. Prof. J. H. Shepherd, N.D. Agri. College, says: Maizg and potato crops well cult'vated save moisture, destroy weeds, rid the .land of wheat and flax insects and diseases, incorporate stable manure when applied and make the land produce good flax, wheat and barley crops when they follow. Clover, lucerne and field peas are crops which gather nitrogen from the air, and will, if they are fed to live stock, add materially to the fertility of the soil. Grass crop 3 tend to keep the land from blowing. Groing these crops make the keeping of live stock a necessity. The men who have grown live stock are the moat successful and thrifty. The frequency and order of the crops must be guaged for each individual farm according to its needs and most of them require two systems on two sets of fields.