Arizona republican., 1910-06-08

in the very heart of Asia, in a body racking and cumbersome covered blackboard, the tarantass, he followed the plant, questioning Russian army officers, natives, the very horses munching their hay in the market 1 places, and oftenest of all the wide. wide plains. Nothing but the hardest of this hardy new alfalfa would sat 1 isfy.
 Then winter, the traditional enemy of pole e-hunters, boisterously fell upon him just as he returned from an ex- cursion to Kuldja, in northwestern China, and the quest was up for that year at least.
 It was nine years before the agri- cultural department could send him out again. The Spanish American, the Filipino and the Russo-JapaneSe wars and the Russian revolution were obstacles in the way.
 But in 1906 the way was open, ex cept for continued blOOdshed in Rus sia. and Hansen went to northern Eu rope, including Lapland and Finland. with instructions to go on to Siberia if, unon investigation he thought con
  ditiOns did not look promising. but he decided to take the risks. and made straight for western Siberia. A second great alfalfa discovery was the early result This was that away up in Siberia there grew wild yellow lowered alfalfa, a forage of great feeding value, on which the natives fattened their herds, but which they did not cultivate.
 There were three species of this al falfa. but of only one could Professor Hansen get seed before he had turned homeward again, and that vas Medi- cagO falcata Seed of this he obtained by securing the plains. picking open the pods by hand, or, as in the Lake Balkal region. by hiring Buriat Mon golians 10 pick with their fingers seed from a load of wild hay brought into the market His little harvest he guarded more carefully than he would have guarded so much fine gold until he had it safely across the Pacific to the United States.
 And the long quest was fully re- warded. The alfalfa pole. on which the explorers mind and heart had been set for l2 years, was found. One of the two species was discovered on the storm swept steppes between the Irtish and the Obi rivers, and the oth- CT some 1910 miles farther east in the Mongolian part of Manchuria
 What is to be the outcome?
 There is but one answer: Hundreds of millions of dollars added to the value of northern farm lands in the United States and Canada, and many millions of dollars added annual in come from such lands. The new alfal- ia brought from Siberia, crossed with the luxurant alfalfa of the southwest. ought to give a very near approach tO an ideal forage and soil restorer for the northvest-just as the strawberry. raspberry and plum hybirds have giv- en the northwest a new outlook for fruit culture. This ideal alfalfa will be one that will never winter will. even under the severest conditions. when the thermometer registers 40 or more below zero and the ground. with out covering of snow. is dry and cracked A particular alfalfa for every climate or soil on this continent is thus the realizable prospect, instead of one species from the land of the date palm-the one hitherto grown.
 Remembering Mir. Coburn's state ment. that by seeding to alfalfa lands have been doubled and trebled in val ue. and sometimes made valuable in vestments when before they were worthless. it is not too much to say that the discovery of the north pole of alfalfa by Professor Hansen. coupled with his principle of plant hardness means literally and without eXaggera ton hundreds of millions of wealth for the people of the United States