CHAPTER XVI. 



ALL ABOUT ALFALFA. 



Alfalfa is the greatest forage plant the world has 

 ever known, and should be a special crop with every irri- 

 gation farmer. It is known scientifically as Medicago 

 saliva, its botanical name. In the Spanish language it is 

 alfalfa, while the French, Swiss, German and Canadian 

 people call it lucern. It is a leguminous perennial, and 

 properly belongs to the pea-vine family. It is often 

 miscalled a grass. Its term of existence has not been 

 authentically established, but it will last the average age 

 of man, and instead of depleting the soil it has a way. 

 through its root nodules, of constantly replenishing the 

 soil with the nitrogenous fertilizing elements of the 

 atmosphere. 



The writer once met a venerable padre of Old Mex- 

 ico, who said his alfalfa patch had been planted over 

 two hundred years, had never been re-seeded during that 

 time, and had yielded four crops of hay regularly every 

 year. The history of this most wonderful plant is some- 

 what shrouded in mystery, but the Grecian historians 

 tell us that it was brought from Media in Asia to Greece 

 in Europe during the reign of Darius, about five hundred 

 years before Christ. Its culture extended to Rome, thence 

 to the South of France, where it has been a favorite for- 

 age plant. It grows wild with great luxuriance on the 

 pampas of Buenos Ayres. It was brought into Mexico 

 by the early Spanish Conquerors, and from thence found 

 its way, about the middle of the present century, to the 

 Pacific Coast country, now Southern California. 



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