Like the cattle I had been myself an entire stranger to the wonderful alfalfa plant, and I never tired marvelling at its exuberance of growth and its capacity for supporting animal life.

The heat in San Joachin Valley in high summer is almost overpowering, and vegetable growth under irrigation quite phenomenal.
Alfalfa was cut some six or seven times in the season; each time a heavy crop.

After taking cattle out of one pasture, then grazed bare, it was only three weeks till the plant was in full growth again, in full flower, two feet high and ready for the reception of more live stock.
The variety of animal life subsisting on alfalfa was extraordinary.

All kinds of domestic stock throve on it and liked it.

In our field, besides cattle, were geese, ducks, turkeys, rabbits and hares in thousands, doves and quails in flocks, and gophers innumerable; frogs, toads, rats and mice; while bees, wasps, butterflies and moths, and myriads of other insects were simply pushing one another out of the way.