HISTORY. 49 
newed, filled with health and vigor, when his reason 
returned and of course he did what any healthy man 
will do daily, blessed the Most High and praised 
Him and was humbled and glad once more. 
It is related that in the old kingdom of Babylonia 
wheat would yield 200 fold and sometimes 300 fold, 
which plainly indicates that it must have been sown 
thinly in drills upon alfalfa sod, irrigated from the 
canals with which that country abounded, and prob- 
ably weeded and cultivated by slave labor. 
About 500 years before Christ the Persians invad- 
ed Greece. Now, Greeks are stubborn folks, or were 
in those days, and many were the battles before the 
Greeks were even in part conquered. The Persians, 
aided by Greek factions and tribes, doggedly toiled 
steadily onward, taking city after city. Wherever 
they went they had chariot horses to feed and cattle 
—bulls, so legend says—for fighting, and cows no 
doubt for helping feed the army. With curious mix- 
ture of martial and agricultural zeal they brought 
with them alfalfa seed and wherever they conquered 
foothold they sowed alfalfa. An army travels, and 
fights, on its belly, so it was a mighty help to the 
Greeks to have the aid of the alfalfa. And without 
doubt it was eaten by the soldiers as well, since green 
succulent alfalfa has always been boiled and eaten 
as greens or pottage. Unhappily the Persians 
sent away hosts of the Greek subjects as slaves to 
Asia, else when they had gone on the people might 
have been almost benefited by the war, since alfalfa 
fields were left in the wake of the army. It must be 
