I am very fond of children's letters. Each year I receive more than thirty thousand of them. I sometimes wonder whether there is another man who is honored by so many letters from young people, for I count it an honor to be so remembered.
Fig. 321. Crown of the alfalfa plant, showing how root and top start off.
As large as that number is, I cannot spare one letter. I always want a few more. All your letters are read and I take great pains to answer all questions. If, by any oversight, you have been missed I am sorry. I know what it costs a boy or girl to write a letter. I never open one without feeling that the writer is a friend of mine, otherwise he would not have expended so much hard work to write it.
School has now begun and of course you are very busy, and so is your teacher. One of the best opportunities to write letters is in school. Please ask your teacher whether you may not write me during your language period. You may say that she may make authors of all of you if she can, but I will do all I can to help you become good letter writers. Ask her whether a letter to me may not be a substitute for a composition.
In your letter you may tell me your experience with alfalfa. Tell me your failures as well as your successes. Even though you received your seeds and did not sow them, tell me that. I shall never find fault with you for telling me the truth. If you sowed the seed and the plants did not do well, tell me that also. The plants may look very small and uninteresting to you this year, but next year they may surprise you.
In some parts of the United States the alfalfa crop is of great value and the loss of it would bring distress to many farmers. I am wondering whether the crop, as raised in all parts of our country, is not worth more money than all the gold found in the Klondike, taking the two year by year. I do not know how that may be. I am wondering. Men by the thousand have gone to the gold mines and endured many hardships and later returned with less money than those who had remained at home and took care of their alfalfa.
It may be that a mine of wealth lies very near you, and to get it you may have to ask alfalfa to find it and bring it to you. Gold cannot be found in all places in a gold country and alfalfa may not feel comfortable and grow in all parts of a good farming country. What we asked of you last spring was that you become alfalfa prospectors and later tell us what you found.