48 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



for the most part walled often with walls of stone 

 or of sun-dried bricks, lined with little canals of 

 cool water with overhanging trees, fig trees or al- 

 monds or palms, and brown men and women, lithe 

 and strong, coming to cut the green meadow with 

 curved sickles and scythes, gathering it in sheaves 

 and carrying it on their backs through gates in the 

 walls to the animals eagerly awaiting it in the en- 

 closed corrals or stables. Alfalfa was developed in 

 dry regions. It came, very likely, from southwest- 

 ern Asia through Persia to Arabia, whence it got its 

 name alfalfa, which simply means the best forage. 

 The Persians grew it finely. Down along the rivers 

 of Babylon in ancient Babylonia alfalfa was a stand- 

 ard crop, most likely. Those river valleys are rich 

 in lime and alkaline in their reaction, admirably 

 suited to alfalfa culture, and there under irrigation 

 alfalfa undoubtedly throve. The one reference to 

 alfalfa in the Bible is found in the fourth chapter 

 of the book of Daniel where in the thirty-third verse 

 it is related of the king : 



"The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: 

 and he was driven from men, and did eat grass [alfalfa] as 

 oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his 

 hairs were grown like eagle's feathers and his nails like bird's 

 claws. And at the end of the days, I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up 

 mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned to me, 

 and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him that 

 liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and 

 His kingdom is from generation to generation." 



The truth probably was that old Nebuchadnezzar, 

 rich, spoiled, feasted and wined till he became in- 

 sane, was turned out to graze in an alfalfa field till 

 on this simple and nutritious diet his body was re- 



