228 THE PLANT WORLD. 



First there were planted 75 cocklebiirs in a garden bed in May, 

 and by the middle of June 64 seedling plants had made their 

 appearance, and in only one instance did two seedlings come from 

 the same bur. I was able to identify 14 of the burs which had 

 sent out one seedling each and upon opening them found that two 

 contained only the remains of decayed seeds, and the other twelve 

 had a good seed in each bur. Eleven of the husked seeds, one 

 having been destroyed in removing it, were placed in a germi- 

 nating pan in the laboratory, with the result that two of the 

 seeds grew in two days, one in three days, one in nine days, two 

 in twenty days, one in twenty-three days, one in forty-two days, 

 and one in fifty-six days, while the two remaining seeds kept 

 the plump fresh appearance for nearly three years, when by 

 accident the germinator was allowed to become dry and the seeds 

 weie killed. The other 61 burs of the experiment, which re- 

 mained in the garden bed over winter, produced 20 seedlings the 

 following spring, but whether from burs that had already grown 

 one seed, was not ascertained. 



This preliminary trial gave considerable coloring to the farmers' 

 theory, which, however, was somewhat neutralized by the rather 

 prompt germination in the laboratory of eighty per cent, of the 

 seeds that failed to start in the ground. Nevertheless, the two 

 facts remained that out of 75 burs only one gave a pair of seed- 

 lings the first year, while twenty produced single seedlings the 

 second year. 



In May of the second year of the study a quantity of burs were 

 placed in germinating pans and out of these 100 were selected 

 from which a seedling each had emerged. These burs that were 

 known to contain no more than one seed each were planted in a 

 garden bed. No further germinations were observed that sea- 

 son. The next year the bed was not very carefully watched, and 

 but five seedlings were noted ; the year following there were eigh- 

 teen seedlings observed. This experiment, although not very 

 complete, gave further credence to the farmers' theory, and even 

 improved upon it, as some seeds ma}' evidently remain in the ground 

 for more than two years in a growing condition. 



