AT FAT FA 



(Medicago sativa^ Linn.) 



History, Desaiption, Varieties and 



HAS AXiWAXS BEEN KNOWN. 



There appears no record of a time when alfalfa was 

 not in some portions of the world esteemed one of Na~ 

 ture's most generous benefactions to husbandry and an 

 important feature of a profitable ag-riculture. Its begin- 

 ning seems to have been contemporary with that of man, 

 and, as with man, its first habitat was central Asia, where 

 the progenitors of our race knew its capabilities in sus- 

 taining all herbivorous animal life, and where, possibly, 

 it too afforded the herbage which sustained Nebuchad- 

 nezzar in his humiliating exile, and eventually restored 

 him to sanity and manhood. 



It was carried by the Persians into Greece with the 

 invasion by Xerxes in 490 B. C, utilized by the Romans 

 in their conquest of Greece, and carried to Rome in 146 

 B. C Pliny and other writers praise it as a forage plant 

 and it has been in cultivation in parts of Italy continu- 

 ously from its introduction. Some writers are disposed 

 to aver that it was brought to Spain and France by the 

 Roman soldiery under Csesar and early thereafter, but 



