122 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



Edward Corrigan, known at the time all over the 

 United States as one of the most successful man- 

 agers and trainers of race horses (which achieved 

 many notable victories on every prominent race 

 course from San Francisco to New York and from 

 Chicago to New Orleans) shipped a detachment of 

 his horses .from California to England. Accom- 

 panying the horses went several carloads of Cali- 

 fornia hay enough to last his large stable for a 

 year. This was because his horses did not do as 

 well in distant parts as they did when trained in 

 California, and this he could only ascribe to the 

 superiority of the hay, as all the other conditions 

 in distant parts were favorable." 



Although grain hay was at first challenged, its 

 victory was easy compared with the struggle alfalfa 

 hay had to make for its deserts. The present popu- 

 larity and wide use of the latter is in sharp contrast 

 to its disfavor thirty or forty years ago, when sharp 

 discrimination was made against butter manufac- 

 tured from alfalfa-fed cows by city receivers who 

 charged that its ill flavor made it impossible to sell 

 it at anything like the price of coast butter and inti- 

 mated that the cream must be "doped" in some way. 

 The dairymen proved that they were feeding noth- 

 ing but alfalfa and alfalfa hay and the trouble was 

 corrected by changes in feeding materials and meth- 

 ods and in handling the milk and cream. During 

 the decade following 1880, there was great difficulty 

 over bad butter in the then new alfalfa district around 

 Fresno. "Country butter" was declared too bad for 



