Note the characteristic angular point at one end, typical of alfalfa. The kidney-shaped type, as in “a” is also characteristic. The rounded type “b” is rare, and resembles Sweet clover. Seeds marked “c” and “d” resemble Yellow trefoil in the projecting “beak”] _CHAPTER II._ Universality of Alfalfa ITS WIDE DISTRIBUTION As the history of alfalfa is traced in the preceding chapter the conclusion is reached that its distribution is not to be circumscribed by any hard and fast lines of climate and soil. It is grown profitably in every country of Europe, in central Asia, its original home, in Australia, the islands of the sea, and in almost every state and territory of the United States, and in Canada. Only two states, Maine and New Hampshire, and only one territory, Alaska, are left wholly in the experimental column. Everywhere else there have been such results as to prove that it ought to become, in greater or less degree, a staple crop on practically every farm, dependent only upon more energy, faith and skill on the part of the farmer, and a natural acclimation. There are several other states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Dakota where the experiment station experts are not fully ready to recommend it as a regular crop for every farm, yet, in each of these there are enterprising farmers who have for years found profit in its raising. The station authorities in Vermont say that success with alfalfa there “depends first on the man, and second on the soil.” W. R. Dodson, botanist of the Louisiana station, says it is his firm conviction that nothing will contribute so much as alfalfa toward making the southern farm self-supplied with feed for work animals, for the production of dairy products, and home raised meat. “I doubt,” he also says, “if alfalfa does better anywhere outside the irrigated regions of the West than it does in the alluvial lands of Louisiana. We have had as high as eight cuttings in one year, with a total tonnage larger than is had in Kansas or Nebraska, and our annual rainfall is sixty-five inches, or more.”