10 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
They were astonishingly prolific sows and gave us 
great litters of healthy pigs, so many sometimes 
that we did not know what to do with them. The 
sows were kept penned up nearly the year through 
and during summer we simply cut alfalfa with a 
scythe and threw it over to them. This kept them 
in fine thrifty condition and their pigs grew but kept 
rather lanky on the diet. Whezx fall came we would 
fatten them off with pumpkins and squashes and 
alfalfa. In winter time we would vary the diet by 
giving them dry alfalfa hay and alfalfa leaves. 
They throve well and it was at first very amusing 
to see hogs eat alfalfa hay, putting their feet on it 
to hold it down while they tore it apart with their 
teeth and chewed it as best they could. It was won- 
derful to us also to see what fine full udders our 
milk cows had. Old-fashioned milking Shorthorns 
they were, of the type that the fathers had. The 
Mormon settlers had brought with them their best 
family cows when they came across the range, and 
we had some of their descendants. We fed these 
cows only alfalfa hay in winter, and mostly soiled 
them on green alfalfa in summer, and what splendid 
foaming pails we carried down from the corral! We 
half lived on milk and cream those days, being too 
busy to make butter. Sometimes we had trouble 
from alfalfa bloat. That came in the fall, after we 
had turned the cows on the meadows and they 
grazed the alfalfa that had come up since the last 
mowing and gotten badly frosted. We used to have 
strenuous times with these old cows, tvine sticks in 
