Alfalfa in Kansas. 



179 



Fia. 156. Kansas. Where alfalfa has reached its highest point of development. 



From Spain alfalfa was carried by the Spaniards to Mexico after the 

 conquest, and thence into South America. Gold seekers, on their way 

 around Cape Horn to California, brought it up from Chile in the late 

 forties or early fifties of the nineteenth century. From California its 

 spread was steadily eastward. Although alfalfa, under the name of 

 lucerne, had been introduced into the eastern states from southern Europe 

 before its eastern emigration from California began, it had never proved 

 a successful crop in the east. 



On its eastward way from California alfalfa finally reached Kansas, 

 where it found the conditions more suitable, perhaps, than in any other 

 land it had visited in its more than twenty centuries of wandering. In- 

 deed, so successfully has the plant been grown in this state that many 

 persons who have not read history carefully have not unnaturally drawn 

 the inference that alfalfa originated in Kansas. (See "History," in 

 index.) 



