REPORT OF TEE DIRECTOR 39 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. "To 



SECOND EXPERIMENT. 



In 1903, a larger scries of trials of samples of grain was planned and put into 

 effect, the experiments being continued to the present, being nine years in all. 



Two sets of samples were provided for this test, one set being kept under the same 

 conditions as obtained in the First Experiment. The grain was put up in cotton bags 

 and kept on a shelf in an office building where the temperature varied widely and 

 where they were subjected to artificial heat during the winter. The other series were 

 put up in the same way and were placed in a room in the upper part of a barn where 

 there was no artificial heat and where the temperature in winter was very much the 

 same as. that out-of-doors. The experiment with those samples kept in a warm place 

 was commenced in 1903, and those exposed to cold were tested for the first time a year 

 later. 



In this series of trials, fifteen varieties of spring wheat and three varieties of 

 fall wheat, twenty varieties of oats, sixteen of six-row barley, ten of two-row barley 

 and seventeen varieties of peas, were tested. 



Under the influence of cooler temperatures, the loss of vitality in all the samples 

 was slower than where kept in warmer temperatures. All the samples selected were 

 from seed grown the previous year and were all of high vitality, plump and well 

 developed. All samples marked C. E. F. were grown at the Central Experimental 

 Farm, those marked Br. at Brandon, Man., and those marked I. H. at Indian Head, 

 Sask. 



Among the wheats, the winter varieties retained a high proportion of germinating 

 power longer than the spring wheats but the difference is not marked after the sixth 

 year, by which time, the specimens both in warm and in cold storage had almost 

 entirely lost their germinating power. 



Referring to the varieties of oats tested, the samples showed reasonably good 

 vitality for five years and then dropped rapidly. 



In the six-row barley, the original proportion of vitality was retained in cold 

 storage for at least six years, after which it dropped materially, while in the warm 

 house, the vitality was maintained in good proportion for five years and after that 

 fell off rapidly. 



Two-row barley in the warm room dropped considerably below fifty per cent on 

 the fifth year, while that in the cold room reached the same position on the sixth year. 



The main decrease in the vitality of the peas tested in the warm room occurred 

 on the sixth year, dropping to 36 per cent, while those in the cold room showed 45 per 

 cent of germinating power on their seventh year. 



These experiments serve to show that it is safe to sow many sorts of seed when 

 two or three years old, in case it is more "convenient to do so, but the facts brought 

 out seem to discredit the stories related about grain germinating after having been 

 kept for long periods. 



