INTRODUCTION. 



In March, 1886, the writer, a tall awkward young 

 man fresh from the fields of Ohio, was traveling by 

 rail through Utah. Near Provo he began to see 

 snug farms with trees, meadows, orchards, granaries 

 and haystacks. Some of these stacks had been cut 

 in two with the hay knife, and he noticed with won- 

 der the beautiful green color of the fresh cut sur- 

 face. Calling the attention of the conductor to this 

 phenomenon, so strange to him, he 'asked, "What 

 sort of hay is in those stacks ! " ' i Lucern, ' ' prompt- 

 ly replied the conductor. "And what makes it so 

 green ? ' ' " It 7 s green because that 's the color of it, ' ' 

 sagely replied the smiling conductor, as he pocketed 

 a cash fare and moved on about his business. At 

 that date lucern, or alfalfa, had not spread much 

 east of the valleys of Utah; some was grown in Col- 

 orado, but it was a new thing there. The Utah 

 farmers were many of them English and Danish, 

 hence their choice of the old name lucern, while the 

 Spanish term alfalfa had come in from Chili by way 

 of California. 



Late that night the writer reached Salt Lake City 

 and early next morning he was up ready to explore. 

 In his rambles about the quaint old city (more old- 

 world than American at that time with its houses 

 of adobe, its walled gardens and orchards, its rows 

 of towering Lombardy poplars) he came across a 



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