INTRODUCTION. 11 



their mouths like bridle bits, making them stand 

 with their heads up a steep bank and putting cakes 

 of ice on their distended sides. We never had one 

 die, but learned then that frosted alfalfa is never 

 a safe feed for a cow. 



Over on the Castle Valley desert were Mormon 

 settlements, Castle Dale, Ferron, Price and other 

 villages. They were on adobe soil mostly, a sad 

 sort of alkaline clay, full enough of minerals but 

 lacking in humus and life-giving properties. The 

 first attempts of these settlers to grow grain were 

 mostly unsuccessful; it would not thrive, and the 

 people were incredibly poor. Little by little they 

 got alfalfa to growing on this alkaline soil and then 

 with cows and pigs and poultry they managed to 

 live quite well. Finally one of them let the water 

 run over his alfalfa in the winter so that it froze 

 into solid ice over his field. This is sure death to 

 alfalfa, unless there is air under the ice, and in the 

 spring he had lost his meadow; nearly every plant 

 of alfalfa was dead. He grieved over this, but set 

 to work to see what he could get from the land and 

 planted a part of it to spring wheat, though it had 

 previously refused to grow wheat, and a part to 

 potatoes, also a very uncertain crop at that time in 

 Castle Valley. The result was a crop of wheat that 

 made 60 bushels to the acre, a marvel to >the whole 

 valley. The potatoes made some unheard of yield, 

 about 900 bushels to the acre, I think, and the for- 

 tunes of Castle Valley with its sun and brilliant skies 

 and wildly desolate plains and crags was assured. 



