Hay! Alfalfa

I have been posting about Joe Curtis being a ranch hand in Range Creek and showing a better way to get rid of greasewoods with a team of horses to clear land for growing alfalfa.  Hay or alfalfa is important to a farmer or rancher.  It's important if you grow alfalfa and it's important if you use alfalfa to feed livestock.  We most always had hay at the ranch at Woodside.  Even I loaded hay on a pickup to haul to Woodside to feed horses.  My uncle Russel didn't grow alfalfa but he had a hay baler that he had bought I guess at a good price.  He would supplement his income by baling hay for others who raised alfalfa but did not have a baler.  I'm not sure whether he had a rake for hay or not but I'm sure he had a baler.  So alfalfa figures in the lives of many of the descendant's of Joseph the 1st or Joseph B. Curtis who we know as Joseph Augustus Curtis, Sr.  I guess we could say here, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree". 
Nicholas Curtis
Joseph the 4th.

A real treat. Joseph the 1st

I feel those of you who took the time and effort to come to this blog are in for a real treat.  I was able to find the article that mentions Joe Curtis on the net.  Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, number 1, p. 27. (Winter 2011)

First go to http://www.history.utah.gov/

Then click on the Learn & Research tab
It will bring up a drop down menu
Click on Publications
You can now do a search
Search the Utah Historical Quarterly
Search for "Joe Curtis"
It brings up about 182 hits
The first one is the one we want
Just click on it and you are there
You may have to navigate to the article about Range Creek
Joe Curtis is mentioned on page 27.


Here is the paragraph that mentions Joe Curtis.

   When Allen departed, Wing took over managing the ranch as well as overseeing the farming tasks near the ranch headquarters.  His cousin Charley Wing, who arrived in July 186, ran the cattle operation while Joe oversaw the farm near the ranch headquarters.  Besides building a cabin, a corral, a blacksmith shop, and a chicken coop, Joe Wing and his ranch hands were heavily involved in alfalfa farming.  At first the men tried clearing the native greasewood and sagebrush with hoes--backbreaking work--but ranch hand Joe Curtis showed them how to hitch a big roller to a team of horses and break the brush.  The large piles of it were then burned.


Footnote: Joseph B. Curtis testimony, Heirs of Joseph E. Wing.