The Bulletin. 13 



Contrary to popular opinion, Mr. A. M. Soule, of the Virginia Experi- 

 ment Station, found that corn developed on thin land will not yield well 

 when first grown on rich ground, and that, while western varieties will 

 outyield our home-grown strains when put on soils made comparable to 

 those found in the west, they will not yield as much on the thin lands 

 of the east as the home-grown varieties. 



The Illinois station found that many varieties of wheat, when grown 

 elsewhere, were worthless when grown on the Marion silt loam in south- 

 ern Illinois, and that the Turkey red wheat, the best wheat for the Mar- 

 shall silt loam at the station was out of its element when grown on the 

 Marion silt loan in southern Illinois. 



Returning again to plants as we see them in nature, who has not 

 noted that certain varieties of plants are radically changed when their 

 seeds fall on distinct soil type, though the seed may not have fallen ten 

 feet from the parent plant. Mr. Hilgard states that the black prairie 

 belt, composed of a heavy black limy clay, in Mississippi, produces a 

 stout, vigorous species of post and black jack oak, but when the seeds of 

 these trees are placed on the non-calcareous clay soil of the flat woods 

 country, they are so changed in form, habit of growth, and size that the 

 inhabitants believe them to be a different species. Mr. Hilgard makes 

 another interesting observation. The upland cypress has a character- 

 istic cone shape, while the lowland cypress has an umbrella shape top. 

 But, says Mr. Hilgard, when seed of the upland variety falls on the 

 swampy land it produces the lowland variety of cypress. This observa- 

 tion might have been doubted had it not come from so eminent an 

 authority as Mr. Hilgard. 



The above interesting data are hardly more remarkable than some 

 given by Mr. De Vries. He found that two alpine varieties of milfoil, 

 so nearly alike in botanical marks that many would think them the 

 same, made quite different demand on the chemical constituents of 

 the soil. The one was adapted to a silicious soil, the other to a calca- 

 reous soil. When both were placed on the calcareous soil only the one 

 adapted to or developed on this soil can survive; the other is crowded 

 out. Bateson also found that "the common dandelion (Taraxacum 

 densleonis) has in a dry soil leaves which are much more irregular and 

 incised, while they are hardly dentate in marshy stations where it is 

 called Taraxacum palustre." Both Darwin and Lamarck believe that 

 not only the great amount of variation observed among our domesticated 

 plants, but the great differences seen between the present plants and 

 their prototypes, is due to the new environments to which they have been 

 subjected, but the amount of variation due to the soil half of the en- 

 vironment never came up for much consideration. 



Any practical alfalfa grower knows that alfalfa is very choice in its 

 soil requirements, demanding a rich, heavy loam, heavily charged with 

 lime carbonate in order to make its best development and that when 

 placed on a soil lacking in these essential qualities it makes a miserable 

 failure. Apropos of this subject the Minnesota Experiment Station 

 observed, "Buying seed every few years from regions having different 

 soils is unwise." 



