Alfalfa in Kansas. 183 



value that may be gotten out of any regional variety, by saving the seed 

 separately from different selected mother plants, is always very large. 

 As a matter of fact a thorough study of the alfalfas of the world from 

 the strictly botanical and scientific standpoint has yet to be made. 



For practical purposes, however, we may say that where alfalfa has 

 been grown for a long time in any region the plants unfitted to survive 

 there are gradually sifted out by Nature, and we finally come to have 

 a tolerably uniform type in each region as long as it is kept growing there. 

 When it is moved elsewhere and exposed to different climatic conditions, 

 Nature begins a new process of sifting, and perhaps does not sift out 

 the same kinds of plants as before. This is what happens, for example, 

 when Arabian or Peruvian alfalfa, which is adapted to a warm region, 

 is grown in the colder parts of North America. 



If we follow alfalfa in its historic westward course from Persia to 

 Arabia, Egypt, Northern Africa, Spain, France and Germany, and fron 

 Spain across the ocean to Mexico, Peru and Chile; if we follow its other 

 track into Asia Minor, Greece and Italy; or if we trace its eastern trail up 

 into Turkestan or Siberia, and down into India; and if we visit any of the 

 stopping places on this extensive pilgrimage, where anything like settled 

 and permanent agricultural conditions prevail, we shall find characteristic 

 types of alfalfa growing in each region, each having its own peculiarities, 

 owing to the fact that Nature's subtle sieve has sifted out the plants un- 

 adapted to the region in question, and has left the rest to propagate. 

 Through the efforts of the agricultural explorers of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture especially, many importations of alfalfa seed 

 have been made for trial from all the principal alfalfa-growing regions 

 of the earth. Following are a few of the principal regional varieties 

 that have been introduced, and that have proved to be of agricultural 

 value in different parts of the United States : Turkestan, Grimm or Old 

 Franconian, Arabian, Peruvian, and Chilean. 



Turkestan Alfalfa. 



Turkestan alfalfa was first introduced by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in 1898. The seeds individually are indistinguish- 

 able from those of common alfalfa, but the bulk seed has a duller, rather 

 dusty appearance, instead of the bright yellow color of common alfalfa 

 seed. The plants so closely resemble ordinary alfalfa that it is practic- 

 ally impossible to say whether any given plant is Turkestan alfalfa or 

 not. The chief value of Turkestan alfalfa lies in its resistance to drouth. 

 In respect to yield it is generally inferior to common alfalfa. In the 

 matter of winter hardiness the strains of alfalfa introduced from the 

 different parts of Turkestan vary exceedingly, owing to the wide range 

 of differences in climate existing in the different parts of this large 

 territory. Some of the Turkestan strains have poor seeding habits, and 

 the habit of making an early spring growth, and of going into a dormant 

 condition early in the fall. The early spring growth is apt to be caught 

 by spring frosts, and a late fall cutting is lost by early dormancy. 



Grimm Alfalfa. 



In 1857 Wendelin Grimm came to America from his home in Kulsheim, 

 in the province of Baden, in southwestern Germany, bringing with him 

 a fifteen- or twenty-pound packet of alfalfa or "lucerne" seed of the 

 variety generally grown around his home, and known as the "Old Ger- 



