ir 



KECL AIMING THE DESERT 25 



or alfalfa, to call it by its pretty Spanish name. 

 We spoke a moment ago of the cattle standing 

 knee-deep in the fields, but it is not in fields of 

 grass but of alfalfa that they stand. 



Alfalfa is a little like a clover, but more like 

 the little medick of our fields. It has a bluish 

 flower, and is a plant which we do not very often 

 see in this country, partly because ours is a rainy 

 country. On the continent of Europe, however, it 

 is very commonly grown, especially in the dry, hot 

 south, and notably in Spain. Curiously enough, 

 however, it did not reach Western North America 

 directly from Spain or even from Europe. The 

 Spanish missionaries took it with them to South 

 America, to Chile, and from there it was brought 

 by other Spanish missionaries to California. It 

 was only in the middle of the nineteenth century 

 that they brought it to California, but it was a 

 great gift, for it is said that now two million acres 

 of alfalfa grow in the west of North America. 



Like so many other valuable plants, alfalfa 

 seems to have come originally from the region of 

 Persia and Asia Minor. Now, in that region the 

 inhabitants had had to struggle for untold genera- 

 tions against nearly the same difficulties as in 

 Western America that is, against drought and 

 alkali. By prolonged care, and many experiments, 

 they succeeded in growing kinds of alfalfa which 



