Diamonds in the Dust: John W. Carlson's Alfalfa Seed Research

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 46, 1978, No. 4

Diamonds in the Dust: John W. Carlson's Alfalfa Seed Research

BY VIRGINIA C. PARKER

AND THE DESERT SHALL BLOSSOM as the rose is a prophecy familiar to Utahns. The Utah desert did blossom, but not with roses. The humble alfalfa plant, whose Arabic name means "horse fodder," helped to create prosperity for the agrarian settlers. As narrative history, the dramatic story of the successful research to produce alfalfa seed in Utah has been confined to scientific literature. Yet, the significance of this plant in the state's agricultural history warrants a broader appreciation and acknowledgment of the economic impact of alfalfa seed production in Utah.

John W T ilford Carlson devoted most of his working life to alfalfa seed. His interest began on a dark winter day in Sweden in 1917 when as a young man he visited the university at Lund. He determined in cold, hungry, wartime Sweden that he would return to school and devote his studies to the search for more dependable agricultural products.

John Wilford was the first of twins born May 11, 1891, in Logan, Utah, to Anna Lundstrom Carlson and John August Carlson. His twin was named Carl Hyrum. They were the third and fourth of the ten children in the Carlson family. Their parents had met aboard the immigrant ship on their journey from Sweden and were married November 10, 1886. The couple settled on what is called the Island in Logan, near cousins and families they had known in Sweden. In a pasture in the bend of Logan River, the Carlsons kept milk cow r s and maintained a garden that sustained the family.

When the twins were four years old, they became ill with scarlet fever. John was left with a partial deafness that greatly affected his life. His position as the eldest son in a Mormon family became somewhat diminished in favor of the younger, more outgoing, and unimpaired brother. They would remain separated by one year in school due to the difficulty John had learning to read. But overcoming his handicap and compensating for it, John developed the personality and scholarly traits that motivated him in his later life. His impaired hearing also gave him a privacy for thoughtful and undistracted study. From early childhood, John preferred the out-of-doors. He enjoyed working in the hayfields. He became an enthusiastic mountaineer, spending much of his free time hiking and exploring in the nearby mountains. In 1894 the family moved to Smithfield where the father took over the blacksmith shop, a trade he had learned in Sweden. The blacksmith shop was sold in 1907, and the family moved to Logan so the children could attend the Brigham Young College.

At the BYC the twins followed different paths. Carl studied business, and John pursued a course in manual arts, becoming a skilled carpenter. He received his degree from the BYC in 1911. Though he preferred farming, he worked at his trade until 1916 when he, like his father before him, accepted a call to serve in the LDS Swedish Mission.

While in Sweden, John was caught by the British blockade of the North Sea to prevent German ships and submarines from gaining access to the Atlantic. Cut off from assistance from his family, John survived the war in Sweden primarily through the charity of the Saints in the mission and cousins still living in Vingaker. To pass the long winter nights, the young man turned to the study of Swedish literature and history. He was very proficient in the language, having learned it before English, and began to experiment with translations of Swedish poetry into English. While on a visit to the university at Lund, he became most interested in the poet Esaias Tegner, who like his family, had come from Sddermanland. John was enchanted with Tegner's Frithiofs Saga, a story of Viking Sweden. In the last years of his life he would return to his translations of Tegner's poetry. During his stay in Lund, John made the decision to continue his formal education when he returned to Utah. In the Lund library he saw a manuscript inscription by Tegner that he remembered and quoted on many occassions: "True wisdom is like a diamond, a crystal drop of heavenly light. And the purer, the greater its worth; and the more the light of day shines forth."

John returned to Logan and in September 1919 enrolled at the Utah State Agricultural College. There his interest in forage crops developed very early. He received his bachelor's degree in agronomy in June 1922. Upon completion of school he and Ina Sorensen of Logan were married. They made their first home in an apartment on the third floor of the Plant Industry Building on the USAC campus. John began his graduate studies, continuing his work in agricultural research. He spent the 1924- 25 academic year at Roosevelt High School, teaching agriculture, manual arts, and mathematics, and returned to Logan and the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station in summer.

John and Ina were happy in Roosevelt. With their baby daughter, they moved into a small cottage and soon made friends. Ina found many opportunities to develop her artistic and social talents. John became more and more absorbed in the problems of growing alfalfa seed, the major crop of the Uinta Basin. John's intellect was challenged. His studies and research had prepared him for what lay ahead.

The first authentic experimental work in alfalfa seed production in Utah was spurred by the urgent demand for seed because of the increasing use of alfalfa for forage throughout the United States and Canada after World War I. With demand for seed high, a proportionately greater acreage of alfalfa had to be left for seed. This change gave rise to a gradually increasing production of alfalfa seed in Utah that reached a peak in 1925.

John Carlson did not think it an accident that alfalfa had its origin in the Middle East as had Christianity. He believed that plants, animals, and men were created and functioned according to divine laws that could be discovered and understood. He accepted Solomon's injunction "In all your getting—get wisdom." Throughout his writings and manuscript papers are quotations from what he called the three p's—the prophets, the poets, the philosophers. Truly believing his life to be a quest for "true wisdom, Which like the diamond is a crystal drop of heavenly light," he began his search for his particular diamond in the dusty loam of the Unita Basin. Eventually he would find it in the golden grains of alfalfa seed that grew there. When he began a field survey in 1924 to identify noxious weeds that threatened the alfalfa seed in Duchesne and Uintah counties, he did not dream that his search would last forty years and require his last full measure of devotion.

The idea of an experimental farm for the Uinta Basin had been suggested at various times by those interested in the development of its agriculture. That it was to become an alfalfa seed experimental farm was due chiefly to the stimulus given to the growing of alfalfa seed in Utah for export beginning about 1921. At least two of the relatively few areas in the United States that were peculiarly adapted by climate for the successful growing of this crop were in Utah. The Uinta Basin was one of these areas. Alfalfa seed as a crop, together with honey from its blossoms, were the chief source of income for the Basin's farmers.

With a profitable market for alfalfa seed, a new era of prosperity for the Uinta Basin began. Amid high hopes and ambitions, the first Annual Uinta Basin Industrial Convention was held at Fort Duchesne in 1923. The various problems of agriculture, homemaking, business, and industry that confronted the people of the Basin were discussed by experts from the educational institutions and by state officials. At this first convention, the problem of alfalfa seed growing was of foremost interest. The request for an experimental farm in the Basin was renewed. William Peterson, director of the Utah Experiment Station, indicated that if the local people would take action to secure the necessary funds, a branch of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station would be established. This promise appealed especially to Erastus Peterson, county agent, who with the help of F. O. Lundberg, A. T. Johnson, Ernest Eaton, and a few other farmers, kept pursuing the idea until the 1925 state legislature considered its implementation. The experimental farm was promoted by the Farm Bureaus of both Uintah and Duchesne counties, the Commercial Clubs, the bankers and businessmen of the Basin, the legislators from both counties, the Uintah and Ouray Indian Agency, and the Utah State Farm Bureau Federation. State Senator Thomas W. O'Donnell was instrumental in finally securing passage of an appropriation of $8,000 for an alfalfa seed experimental farm in the Unita Basin.

Accurate information on the proper methods of producing alfalfa seed was very meager. Prior to the establishment of the Uinta Basin farm no alfalfa seed experimental studies had been conducted anywhere. The proposed work of the farm included: first, seeking more reliable commercial methods of producing alfalfa seed; second, studying pollination and fertilization of the blooms of alfalfa as related to seed production; third, comparing the seed yielding qualities of known strains of alfalfa; fourth, searching for or developing by breeding new, superior strains of alfalfa for seed production. John Carlson was appointed as superintendent of the new farm and charged wdth the responsibility of making it a working reality while he continued his graduate studies at USAC.

The establishment of the farm began on May 28, 1925, when director William Peterson, D. S. Jennings, D. W. Pittman of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, and the newly appointed superintendent arrived in the Uinta Basin to select a site. On the morning of May 29, the party from Logan, together with representatives of the Peppard and Occidental Seed companies, Roosevelt State Bank, Uintah and Ouray Indian Agency, and county agent Erastus Peterson, left from Fort Duchesne on an inspection tour of possible sites. Six sites in the vidinity of Roosevelt and Fort Duchesne were examined. Location and soil and w r ater rights were considered factors of paramount importance. A forty-acre tract near Fort Duchesne was selected.

On the evening of May 29, at a meeting at Fort Duchesne, Peterson reported on the farm site and discussed how the experimental work would be carried on. He made it plain that many of the experiments that to the average person would seem complete failures would be of the utmost importance to the researchers. It was just as necessary to know what to avoid as it was to know what to do. State Senator O'Donnell noted the funds available for the work and said that inasmuch as the Indians would also profit from results of the work, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs would be expected to match the state appropriation to assist in the work of the farm. At a regular staff meeting earlier in the year, the name of Uintah Basin Alfalfa Seed Experimental Farm had been adopted as the official name of the farm.

A lease and contract for the farm w r as executed on June 1 1925. According to its terms, the experiment station would have exclusive and uninterrupted use of the land for a period of ten years. The rental price was to be $8.00 per acre, or $320.00 annually. In addition, the state was to pay the water assessments.

The new experimental farm w r as located about midway between the two extreme limits of the alfalfa seed growing areas of the Uinta Basin. Full frontage on the Victory Highway (U.S. 40) made it highly accessible. The land was an Indian allotment of John Quip, who later worked on the farm as an unskilled laborer. The allotment had been leased by F. O. Lundberg who cleared it of its native growth and quickly seeded the west ten acres to common alfalfa. A year later, he seeded another ten acres to common alfalfa. The remaining twenty acres had been continuously cropped to small grains and was foul with poverty weed and wild oats. The land had demonstrated its value for alfalfa hay, but no seed crop of importance had yet been grown on the alluvial soil.

The work of the farm was directed by superintendent John Carlson. He worked under the supervision of the director and agronomist of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station who outlined the general policy of the farm and initiated the experiments.

Carlson commenced his official duties on June 1, 1925. Work on the farm began about June 20 and consisted, first, in the construction of a building to house seed, tools, implements, and a laboratory and workroom. The building was a frame structure, the heavier timbers being of native lumber finished with Oregon fir. The superintendent assisted in the construction. Selected entries from Carlson's personal diary give some graphic details:

June 20. I left at 7:20 A.M. for the farm at Fort Duchesne. Mr. (Peter) Anderson and son were there to work on the house. I got Mr. Lundberg's team and during the day hauled 3 barrels of water for the cement making, 2 loads of rock and 1 load of sand from the river. I also helped to place the rocks in the forms. Mr. Anderson Sr. had to leave about 11 o'clock to return to Roosevelt to build a casket. . . .

June 22. The work is progressing nicely, the frame work of the shed was up today.

June 23. 1 man was employed to dig trench. I worked at cleaning the place and making ready for the painters until dark, then visited Lundberg to get him to furrow out the old alfalfa.

July 4th. Finished my work on screens and doors on the apartment at Fort Duchesne then got ready to go to Logan early in the morning to get my family. . . .

July 23. I continued my work with Mr. Merckley to set posts for the fence at the farm (40 cedar posts) .... Fence consists of 32 inch wire .... Three gates of iron frames and woven wire.

July 24. Observed day as a holiday. With Ina and the baby, I attended the Indian Sun Dance at Whiterocks. We then went to Whiterocks canyon for picnic lunch. I bought a fishing license.

Living quarters for the superintendent and his family were secured at Fort Duchesne through the courtesy of F. A. Gross, superintendent of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Agency. The west half of the house known as Officers Quarters No. 10 had not been occupied for many years and was run-down. Repairs, which included cold-water plumbing and electricity, were accomplished cooperatively by the station and the Indian Agency. Decorated by Ina, the home became a pleasant dwelling.

The first experiments on the farm originated in late March 1926 with actual planting begun on April 13, 1926. Establishment of the Uintah Basin Alfalfa Seed Experimental Farm created the opportunity for an extensive study of agricultural and management practices in relation to successful growing of alfalfa seed. The alfalfa was treated in different ways to determine the occurrence and frequency of variations in seed yields. Data collected during the first season at the farm were published as Carlson's master's thesis in March 1927. So new were the data that the thesis contained only one bibliographic citation to previous work. These early experiments had a two-fold purpose: 1) to study some of the basic agronomic principles that seemed to apply in the production of alfalfa seed; and 2) to gain a more complete knowledge of the effects of harmful insects to alfalfa. These objectives were later expanded to include the effects of weeds and destructive plant diseases. Still later, a study was developed to include pollination and seed setting in alfalfa.

The first publication reporting the results obtained at the Uintah Basin Farm appeared in bulletin form in 1931. It gave a complete history of the early experiments. That bulletin was followed a year later by a station circular that featured the essential development in the experimental work and suggested a procedure for cultivation that seemed to have significance. 6

Most alfalfa seed growers regard the alfalfa flower as a peculiar mechanism. At blossoming time, the main stem and each branch may produce at least one cluster of pea-shaped flowers that are purple in common alfalfa. There are ten stamens, nine in a bundle and one alone. The pistil has a compound ovary, one part of which develops into the pod after fertilization. A large insect, such as a bumblebee, alighting on the flower "trips" it and effects pollination. As the pods develop, they become distinctly curled, forming a spiral of one or more complete circles, and bearing from one to eight seeds. High seed yields result primarily from conditions favoring effective pollination.

In biological reproduction through germ cells, a whole organism derives from progressive division of the original cell, which is the zygote in the case of sexual reproduction, as in alfalfa seed production. Growth is a consequence of cellular multiplication. Another process of reproduction occurs from vegetative sprouts. Stems, leaves, and flowers may form directly from this method, but not seed. Seed production requires the usual sexual processes. The alfalfa plant is an example of this method; and for this reason successful growing of alfalfa seed becomes more complicated and exacting.

In Utah, alfalfa seed has nearly always been taken from the second growth of the alfalfa during a season. But in the Uinta Basin, most of the seed produced was taken from the first growth of the plants. This practice may be one possible reason why the effects of harmful insects became more prevalent in that area.

Prior to effective control of harmful insects in alfalfa by application of insecticides, spring and fall cultivation of alfalfa fields was a common practice as a means of controlling the known harmful insects, the alfalfa seed Chalcis-fly, weevil, aphis, and, in some cases, grasshoppers. The lygus bug was at that time unknown as a limiting factor in the successful growing of alfalfa seed.

At the Uintah Basin Farm management treatments w r ere varied in numerous combinations in the hope of meeting the problem of declining yields. Yet, yields continued to decline. Charles J. Sorenson, research entomologist for the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, was the first to identify lygus bugs as harmful to the alfalfa plant. He wrote, "Of all the insect pests infesting alfalfa in Utah, none has been found to be more injurious to the seed crop than the lygus bugs. This is because of their universal distribution in alfalfa fields, heavy population density and wide range of host plants." Lygus feed on scores of different cultivated and wild plants, native and introduced weeds. The principal cultivated host plants include alfalfa, sugar beets, cotton, tobacco, potatoes, beans, various garden plants, most deciduous and small fruits, and many ornamental plants. Foremost of the weeds, in Utah, are the Russian thistle and the halogeton weed.

At the conclusion of the eighth year of work at the farm, Carlson wrote:

If it were definitely known that alfalfa seed production would continue to be as difficult and uncertain as it has been in Utah since 1925, the logical method for improving yields would be by breeding or finding strains that are naturally better seeders under difficult conditions. Another way of meeting the difficulty, is by intensive seed production of areas which continue to return satisfactory yields with the present strains. Growers should realize the wastefulness and lack of economy in continued attempts to grow alfalfa seed in areas which previous experience has shown unsuitable for this crop.

In 1935 when the ten-year lease expired, the Uintah Basin Farm was closed. Its work had been a continued documentation of declining seed production without finding a solution for growing alfalfa seed successfully. Experiments were continued mostly at the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station Farm in Cache Valley.

Once John Carlson had identified the importance of lygus injury to the alfalfa plant, he determined to solve the problem of harmful insects, especially the lygus bug. He entered the University of Wisconsin as a doctoral student in agronomy to study plant breeding.

In order to return to school, John had to leave his wife and children in Logan, a move that required courage and sacrifice. In Wisconsin he lived frugally on the stipend provided by his fellowship and what little Ina could spare from her meager income. Ina was both resourceful and ingenious in meeting the needs of her children. Most of the family's food was grown and preserved by her. She made all the family's clothes. Milk and meat were provided by John's parents and Ina's farmer brothers. She retired the family automobile and opened her home to a paying boarder. From Wisconsin, John wrote in November 1935:

I think we are doing something this winter, which is molding our own life, and making it distinctly our own. I am sure it will bring us happiness later, so we can just make up our minds to be happy, and remember it is for a good purpose. I am sure you can make a happy group there at home, and perhaps you feel each day that it is bringing us nearer our goal and the time when I shall be coming back. . . . When I come home again, and get another job, I think we can plan on living a little more for enjoyment and life itself. Still there is the living to earn, and the children to educate, so we shall have to figure on keeping our nose to the grindstone for awhile yet.

... I am certainly getting a finer insight into the mysteries of plant life through my studies. I am sure it will be an inspiration and a help to us in bringing our children to a fuller appreciation of the real meaning of life.

In early December, John attended a seed grower's meeting in Chicago, where he reported on his research:

... I was detained after the meeting for about 45 minutes talking to those who came around and asked me questions and my opinions on certain points. The meetings are about 3 hours in length, so if they will hang around at all after them for the purpose of asking questions, they must be interested in what has been said. . . .

I think 60 percent of the topics of the crops section dealt with grasses, clovers and alfalfa. Nearly every speaker stressed the need for an increase in alfalfa acreage and I would say that the future for the alfalfa crop is very good as far as the demand for seed is concerned. .. .

While in Chicago, Carlson learned that the Department of Agriculture was considering establishing three alfalfa seed districts in the United States—in the Uinta Basin-western Colorado area, Kansas, and Nebraska. The Utah-Colorado program w ould be in connection with the experiment station and Carlson would head it. To his wife he cautioned:

(Do not say anything about this as we do not want it to get out in Logan through us!) ... If I can only get a satisfactory salary and expense budget, this work would be very much to my liking, and somewhat of the kind I have been looking forward to.

Christmas was approaching. Ina wanted to take the children to her sister's spacious home in Kaysville, but John was anxious about her traveling in the winter.

... I wish I could spend Christmas with you, but I think it best not to attempt to go home. We shall try and make up for it next year, if I land a job with the government. I won't mind spending the summers in the alfalfa seed and hay field again. I think they have given me more pleasure than anything else related to my work.

Carlson concluded his studies at the University of Wisconsin in June 1938. His doctoral dissertation related directly to problems with alfalfa seed production in Utah. It concludes:

. . . Numerous observations made during survey studies to determine the cause of alfalfa seed-crop failures have shown serious damage to alfalfa to result more or less directly in proportion to the Lygus population of the seed fields. Lygus bugs are, therefore, regarded as an important cause of the major alfalfa seed-crop failures in Utah.

The importance of Lygus as a factor affecting alfalfa seed production in Utah is evident also from the nature of the damage to the buds and flowers, and by the significant improvement in the yield of seed that is consistently obtained when Lygus bugs are controlled.

Once more Carlson had completed his formal studies just as the opportunity developed to apply his particular skill. Returning to Utah he engaged in the cooperative research of plant scientists wdio uncovered a wide range of new techniques of seeding and seed bed preparation. They developed new cropping and management practices, evaluated strains and varieties of alfalfa of diverse origin, and discovered germ plasm of great value in the survival of alfalfa under adversity.

By 1950 alfalfa had become the most important cultivated crop in the Intermountain Area and one of the most important forage crops in the nation. A stable supply of alfalfa seed was essential to maintain hay fields and pasture. Use of legume plants for soil conservation created an additional demand for seed. The seed supply for the entire nation was concentrated in a few areas where soil and climate were favorable. Utah was one of those areas. Yet, yield continued to fluctuate widely.

To give more impetus to research, Congress had appropriated special funds in 1947 for establishment of the Legume Seed Research Laboratory at Utah State Agricultural College. The work of the laboratory was done cooperatively with the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station; the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering; and the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine. By 1950, it was possible to summarize what had been learned and publish a guide for growers to which Carlson contributed.

Yields doubled the first year after the use of DDT. As control of harmful insects became possible, it seemed that there would be a brilliant future for the alfalfa seed growing industry in Utah. But this did not occur, primarily because the Utah farmer had traditionally considered seed a supplementary crop. As farmers in other seed-producing areas began to manage their farms to produce alfalfa seed as a separate crop, farmers in Utah continued to make the decision to harvest seed depending on the amount of available water and the need for hay.

During the period of comeback for seed production with the application of insecticides, research in Utah became absorbed with pollination studies. In the Legume Seed Research Laboratory, a division of opinion developed between the agronomists and entomologists. The entomologists grew increasingly concerned because the use of DDT appeared to diminish the population of bees believed to be necessary for pollination.

At the USDA Legume Seed Research Laboratory in Logan, there were five federal researchers, mostly entomologists, whom Carlson referred to as "the bee men." They developed a theory that continued alfalfa bloom failure could be attributed to the failure of bees in fertilizing the alfalfa blossom. As the only agronomist in the group, Carlson stubbornly persisted in his theory that the principal cause of failure was injury to the flower bud by harmful insects, especially the lygus. Conflict of theories persisted. Those favoring the pollination theory set up their experimental plots at the South Farm in Cache Valley.

To provide the conditions he believed necessary, Carlson purchased eleven acres of dry land in Petersboro where he would have ideal soil, moisture, and weather. It was isolated among wheat fields to prevent cross pollination with alfalfa grown for hay, and it provided a larger area than was possible in the small plots of the South Farm. He leased this land to the experiment station so he could conduct his experiments as he believed necessary.

In the 1950s Carlson studied the possibility of growing alfalfa seed in dryland regions. It became necessary for farmers to divert large acreages from production of wheat that was in surplus supply. Alfalfa was also used for soil improvement and erosion control. Growing alfalfa seed would be more profitable to the wheat farmer than growing alfalfa for hay. During this period, experiments were extended to dryland areas of Bear River Valley and Box Elder County.

In September 1958 a comprehensive review of forage and range research was held in Logan. The panel defined major problems and trends in Utah agriculture. Forage production accounted for the principal agricultural use of land in Utah. Rapid growth in industrialization and population threatened reduction of agricultural resources.

Division of opinion grew. Carlson felt that the Legume Seed Research Laboratory had overlooked recommendations published in the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station's Circular 125 in 1950. In January 1961 he submitted a paper that summarized research and observations from 1925 to 1958. The dissolution of the Legume Seed Research Laboratory was imminent, and it coincided with the official end of forty years of alfalfa seed research. In a covering letter to the station director, D. Wynne Thorne, Carlson wrote:

. . . The present study guide has been prepared for alfalfa seed growers in Utah, and other western states, in recognition of the need for a substitute crop for diverted dryland wheat acres. The suggestion implies the initiation of a permanent study course in various departments concerned with the problem at the Utah State University. The suggestion would be a fitting climax to the imminent dissolution of the Legume Seed Research Laboratory at the close of the present fiscal year.

... I feel an urgent need for someone to continue the work to which I have devoted so many years; and to preserve the traditional heritage of Utah as a leading producer of alfalfa seed.

Carlson retired from the USDA in 1962, feeling that his work had been accepted by the USDA and in Wisconsin but not in Utah. Utah had become dependent for seed on California, Washington, and Oregon, states that had gotten their information and technique from Utah originally.

Accompanied by his daughter, he made a return visit to Scandinavia in the summer of 1963. At the Plant Breeding Station at Svalof, Sweden, he was honored by the Swedish Seed Association which presented him a new edition of Tegner's Frithiofs Saga. This gift inspired him to resume his translations of Swedish poetry into English.

Upon his return to Logan, he persuaded Brooks Roundy to join him in the intensive culture of alfalfa seed on the eleven acres he owned in Petersboro. There he continued his investigations freelance. This work done with Roundy was not authorized by the Experiment Station. It was Carlson's intent to teach Roundy all he could so he could carry on the work. On the eleven acres, and in other parts of Roundy's dryland wheat fields, Carlson developed a cultural procedure based on his experimental data.

In 1972 Carlson and Roundy harvested 6,142 pounds of clean alfalfa seed from ten acres, for an average yield of 614 pounds per acre. The state average for 1972, estimated to be the highest yield ever, was 320 pounds per acre.

The story of this harvest w r as recorded in an oral interview in November just after the results were known. 16 At the time of the interview Carlson, aged eighty, was still enthusiastic about his work; and he was filled with awe and respect for results which he attributed to careful application of scientific principles.

I'm about worn out. I'm through now. But, I'm very grateful for the fact that I could harvest this last crop with its high yields. My last desperate action was to put the whole field in Uinta alfalfa. I tried for 1,000 pounds, but missed it by about 300 pounds.

... I spent parts of every day out there watching the development of the lygus population threatening the maturing seed. At one point I thought it was lost. We treated the field again, and got the crop in. Yields of 600 pounds—field run!

He agreed that insecticide was destructive to the bees as well as the lygus pest but said that some bees were always left to pollinate the alfalfa. His study had taken so long, he added, because

I worked alone the first eleven years. In 1941 the bee men came. They were experts on pollination. There were five of them set up experiments on the South Farm. They permitted me to do as I pleased on that land I owned.

The work on the Petersboro farm w r as also reported to Ray Burtenshaw, Utah extension agent, for whom Carlson described his cultural practices:

There are several factors which must be adhered to if an alfalfa seed crop of this magnitude is to be obtained. These include planting a high yielding variety, a good uniform stand, weed control, adequate moisture, pollination, proper fertilization, and insect control. In Cache Valley the first cutting must be left for seed, so that the crop will mature as much as possible before the early frost. . . .

If all other conditions are met, and insects, such as alfalfa weevil and lygus bugs, are not controlled throughout the growing season, then the alfalfa bloom and seed curls "strip off." Other insects such as grasshoppers, armyworm, aphids, etc. are taken care of as the spraying is done to control the alfalfa weevil, lygus bugs and lygus nymphs. . .

Carlson determined the time for application of insecticide by use of an insect net to obtain population counts of lygus. He walked at random in the field, sweeping the net lightly over the blossoms in five strokes. If he could count twenty-five lygus in the net, it w r as time to spray again. Some seasons required as many as seven spray applications to protect the seed crop.

At the end of the interview, John Stewart asked Carlson, "If you had your life to live over again, would you do this w r ork?"

"If I were a seed grower, I'd have as much confidence as I had thirty years ago. You never get perfect control, no matter what you do," he replied.

Following the harvest in 1972, the field was plowed and seeded to barley for five years. After so many years devoted to the solution of a single problem, Carlson's quest for the "diamond, a crystal drop of heavenly light" was at an end. He was satisfied that he had found his diamond and the heavenly light that led him to a dependable agricultural staple.

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