INTRODUCTION. 41, 
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 
rim 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. 
