The Production of New and Improved Varieties of Timothy 341 



a hay crop throughout the northern United States than is any other 

 plant. It has also been cultivated for a long period in certain parts of 

 Europe, but is not used so extensively there as in this country. 



Unlike the majority of our extensively cultivated crops, timothy has 

 not been improved by the segregation of different varieties or races. 

 Almost all our cultivated plants and animals are represented by nimierous 

 varieties and breeds. We do not cultivate simply wheat, corn, or apples, 

 but we grow Dawson's Golden Chaff wheat, Leaming corn, or Baldwin 

 apples. We have hundreds of dift'erent races and varieties of these crops 

 that have been bred and selected because of their superior qualities and 

 fitness or their adaptability to certain soil or climatic conditions. It is 

 well recognized that different varieties of cultivated plants differ in their 

 adaptability to various soils, yet when we buy timothy for planting we 

 buy simply timothy seed, and not any special variety of known origin 

 and value. We know nothing of its special fitness for our farms and 

 climate other than that in general timothy does well in our State. If we 

 ask for selected seed, what we get is simply seed that has been specially 

 cleaned and winnowed or is from a particularly well-cured crop. It is 

 clear that such procedure is contrary to the well-known principles of 

 agriculture, and if we desire to secure the best possible crops of hay we 

 must plant improved varieties adapted to our conditions. 



Hay is the most extensively grown crop in the State of New York, 

 and the great bulk of our hay crop is made up of timothy. At present 

 no crop means so much to the farmers of New York as timothy, and yet 

 timothy remains unimproved. This thought was clear in the minds 

 of the experiment station authorities when investigations in the breed- 

 ing of timothy were inaugurated. 



Previous to the beginning of the Cornell experiments, little work had 

 been undertaken in breeding timothy. Professor Hays,* at the Minne- 

 sota Experiment Station, had made some studies of the variations but no 

 improved varieties were introduced. Somewhat later, in 1894, Dr. A. D. 

 Hopkins, t of the West Virginia Experiment Station, made selections of 

 a number of different types observed in nature and tested their com- 

 parative yielding powers. He obtained several different varieties, which 

 were placed with the United States Department of Agriculture for com- 

 parative trial and distribution. These varieties have been under trial 

 by the Department for several years but have not been generally dis- 

 tributed. These two attempts, so far as the writer is informed, comprise 

 all the work on breeding timothy that had been undertaken in the United 

 States prior to the beginning of the Cornell experiments. 



♦Hays, W. M. Minnesota Experiment Station Bulletin No. 20 (1892). 



t Hopkins, A. D. Proceedings of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science. 1895. Pp. 

 29-33. 



