The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1910-09-15
HANSEN UP NORTH
INTERESTING STORY OF QUEST
OF EMINENT PLANT EXPERT
IN NORTHERN SIBERIA
WANTED HARDY ALFALFA
h Government Had Commissioned
Him to Obtain Seed of Hardy
Varieties For Introduce
ton in the States

shortly before Commander Robert
E. Peary nailed the stars and stripes
TO the geographical north pole early
In the spring of 1909, there returned
to the United States from northern
Asia another explorer who had found
a pole, the. discovery of which, In al
human probability, means hundreds OF
millions of dollars to the people of the
United States" This is the opening
sentence of a story in the Outlook
concerning the great work of a former
Iowa man, Prof. n. Z. Hansen of
South Dakota.
This POLE" continues w p. Kirk
wood, was the north pole of alfalfa,
and the splendor of the achievement
of finding it lies in the fact that the
alfalfa seeds brought to America from
its vicinity mean the extension of the
alfalfa belt or this continent north
ward to the Arctic circle, if men care
to take it so far; successful alfalfa
culture, that is, for an immense re-
sion from which by extreme cold 1t
has hitherto been barred; an increase
of something like $50 an acre in the
values of northern farm lands; an
added income of millions upon mil
lions of dollars for American farm
ers, and consequently it may fairly
be assumed, greater prosperity for all.
The ~diScoverer, who came back
unheralded and went ungarlanded
when he came, was Niels Ebbesen
Hansen, a hardy bodied and high spir-
tied Dane by birth, an ardent and 10y
al American by adoption, plant eX-
plorer for the United States govern
ment when there is exploring to do In
especially difficult regions, and regu-
larly the head Of the horticultural and
forestry department of the South Da-
kota experiment station, which is
connected with the South Dakota col
lege of agriculture and mechanic arts
at Brookings, S. ID.
But why?" asks some one. There
is abundance of alfalfa in this coun-
try, enough to supply any quantity of
seed to the north" Obviously, the
trouble Is the seeds are not of the
right kind. Plants from the seed of
common alfalfa, such as are under
irrigation in California give nine cut
tings a season, and without irligat on
in Oklahoma give as many, often win
ter-kill in the extreme cold of Minne-
sofa and the Dakotas. That Is, the
kind of alfalfa which thrives in the
southern states will not stand the
severe winters of the north without
a snow blanket, and such a blanket
cannot be had to order from the
weather man. In the winter OF 1888
the farmers of the west lost millions
of dollars just because Of this fact.
when Mr.. Wilson became secre-
tary of agriculture and developed his
great plan to search the world for
plants adapted to cold and dry CHM
ates, he chose Hansen for his eXplor-
er. Accordingly in 1897 the latter set
out, the agricultural bureaus first
plant explorer plenipotentiary.
Pursuing his search Professor
Hansen crossed Russia twice and then
went southwark through Transcau-
casia and across the Caspian sea into
the land of the Turkoman. 1t was
there, thrice n years ago that the
north pole of alfalfa idea laid its
relentless grip upon him.
Zone memorable day he came upon
the trail of a hardy alfalfa. The dis
covery set his blood a Jingle.
"At once he set his face toward
the alfalfa pole. The compass was
useful only in so far as it indicated
that the trail led northward. His
guide was the alfalfa plant itself, and
a weary though increasingly allur-
ing journey it led him.
Thirteen hundred miles northeast
ward along the Tian-Shan mountains
in the very heart of Asia, in a body
and cumbersome covered
the tarantass, he followed
the plant, questioning Russian army
officers, natives, the very horses
munching their hay in the market
places and o%ftenest of all the wide,
wide plains. Nothing but the hardest
of this hardy new alfalfa would
Then winter, the traditional enemy
pole-hunters, boisterously fell upon
him just as he returned from an ex-
to Kuldja, in northwestern
China, and the quest was up for that
year, at least.
1T 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 We're
obstacles in the way.
But in 1906 the way was open, ex-
cept for continued %bloodshed in Rus
STA and Hansen went to northern
Including Lapland and i'm
and, with instructions to go on to
if, upon Investigations, he
conditions in Russia would
Conditions id not look prom
sing but he decided to take the risks
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 Powered alfalfa, a forage of
great feeding value, on which the ma
Sioux Falls During the visit of Col.