ALFALFA 219 



plant were for the first time sent from China to Russia in 1840, and 

 that he himself has been active for six years in propagating it in Russia, 

 Livonia, Esthonia, and Finland. This is not to be doubted, but the 

 point I venture to question is that the plant should not have been 

 known in Russia prior to 1840. Not only do we find in the Russian 

 language the words medunka (from Greek medike) and the European 

 I'utserna (lucerne) for the designation of Medicago sativa, but also 

 krasni ("red") burkun, letuxa, lugovoi v'azel ("Coronilla of the 

 meadows"); the word burkun, burunduk, referring to Medicago falcata 

 (called also yumorki), buruntik to M. lupulina. It is hard to realize 

 that all these terms should have sprung up since 1840, and that the 

 Russians should not have received information about this useful plant 

 from European, Iranian, or Turkish peoples. A. DE CANDOLLE* ob- 

 serves, "In the south of Russia, a locality mentioned by some authors, 

 it is perhaps the result of cultivation as well as in the south of Europe." 

 Judging from the report of N. E. HANSEN,* it appears that three species 

 of Medicago (M. falcata, M. platycarpa, and M. ruthenica) are indigenous 

 to Siberia. 



The efforts of our Department of Agriculture to promote and to 

 improve the cultivation of alfalfa in this country are well known; for 

 this purpose also seeds from China have been introduced. Argentine 

 chiefly owes to alfalfa a great amount of its cattle-breeding. 3 



1 Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 103. 



2 The Wild Alfalfas and Clovers of Siberia, pp. 11-15 (Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Bull. No. 150, Washington, 1909). 



8 Cf. I. B. LORENZETTI, La Alfafa en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1913, 360 p.)- 



