70 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



in our wet Ohio climate would spoil badly. The haymakers are 

 largely Italians; the irrigators are Italians. Spaniards do some 

 of the work. Basques do some of it, Mexicans do a part, Portu- 

 guese do a part, Chinese do the cooking and gardening. Ameri- 

 cans do a little of everything, and are often foremen. Mr. 

 Schmitz speaks three or four languages, and finds them almost 

 indispensable. Things must go wrong very often on such a vast 

 ranch; there must be perplexities and vexations enough to vex 

 a saint. Think then how convenient to have three or four lan- 

 guages in which to express your disapprobation with things in 

 general and the case in particular! 



This much for one man's fortunes as built on al- 

 falfa roots. But other men were awakening to the 

 value of the plant. 



Soon it spread over much of California, and 

 thence eastward into Utah where it was called lu- 

 cerne and where it throve as well as it could thrive 

 anywhere on earth. In Utah were many small farm- 

 ers, careful men, keeping cows and horses and pigs 

 with poultry and bees. To these men alfalfa was a 

 god-send. The Mormon farmers began to cut alfalfa 

 for seed. From Utah seed nearly the whole west has 

 been planted. Colorado took alfalfa next; fields of 

 good size were being sown in 1886 when first the 

 writer traveled through that state. A little later 

 alfalfa suddenly sprang into great prominence in 

 Colorado. By its ability to enrich soils and make 

 lands fit for potatoes, beets or any other thing it 

 came into great favor. A hundred villages in Colo- 

 rado are built upon the alfalfa plant. Alfalfa is 

 more to Colorado than all her gold, all her silver, all 

 her wheat or sugar or forests. To take away alfalfa 

 from Colorado would destroy the very foundations 

 of her prosperity and nothing known upon the earth 



