CHAPTER XV 



ALFALFA 



WHILE alfalfa is comparatively a new crop to the Ameri- 

 can farmer, it has been grown for centuries by farmers in 

 other lands. Indeed, so far as we know, it is the oldest 

 of cultivated leguminous forage crops, its culture in the east- 

 ern Mediterranean regions 

 having been established long 

 before the Christian era. 

 Probably it was first culti- 

 vated in Persia, from which 

 country it was introduced 

 into Greece during the war 

 between these two nations 

 over 400 years B.C. From 

 Greece it was carried to the 

 Romans, whose armies, as 

 they went forth to battle, 

 carried it with them and 

 were responsible for its in- 



FIG. 99. An alfalfa plant. ^ . 



troduction into many Jiiurc- 



pean countries. When it first came to the United 

 States we do not know, but probably in colonial days 

 or soon thereafter, since we know that Thomas Jefferson 

 grew it in Virginia. Its culture on the eastern coast of 

 the United States, however, did not attract much atten- 

 tion, and it was grown there but little. In 1851 it was 



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