HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, VARIETIES AND HABITS 5 



alfalfa and one or two others are all that are of practical 

 value as fodders. It is a true perennial plant, smooth, 

 upright, branching, ordinarily growing from one to four 

 feet high, yet in some instances much higher, owing to 

 conditions of soil, climate and cultivation. Its leaves 

 are three parted, each leaflet being broadest about the 

 middle, rounded in outline and slightly toothed toward 

 the apex. The purple pea-like flowers instead of being 

 in a head, as in red clover, are in long, loose clusters or 

 racemes. These are scattered along the plant's stems 

 and branches, instead of being especially borne, as in red 

 clover, on the extremities of the branches. The matured 

 seed-pods are spirally twisted through two or three com- 

 plete curves, and each pod contains several seeds. The 

 seeds are kidney-shaped, and average about one-twelfth 

 of an inch long by half as thick. They are about one- 

 half larger than seeds of red clover, and in color are at 

 their best an olive green or a bright egg-yellow, instead 

 of a reddish or mustard yellow, or faded brown. The 

 ends of the seeds are slightly compressed where they are 

 crowded together in the pod. 



Alfalfa is very long-lived ; fields in Mexico, it is 

 claimed, have been continuously productive without re- 

 planting for over two hundred years, and others in France 

 are known to have flourished for more than a century. 

 Its usual life in the United States is probably from ten 

 to twenty-five years, although there is a field in New 

 York that has been mown successively for over sixty 

 years. It is not unlikely that under its normal conditions 

 and with normal care it would well-nigh be, as it is 

 called, everlasting. 



