The Bulletin. 15 



•selection and adaptation to the previous environments, the first, and 

 maybe the second, generation of plants may be expected to show a tend- 

 ency to reproduce the qualities of the old strain, but since environmental 

 conditions of life are always exerting a greater influence on the plant 

 organism than its inherent qualities, the plant soon changes its habit of 

 growth, etc., to fit the new conditions. It is during this period of read- 

 justment that the plant is liable to become unprofitable to the grower. 

 One example must suffice to illustrate: The Harvest King variety of 

 wheat, adapted to the Marion silt loam of southern Illinois, beat a 

 variety of the same name from Indiana three and nine-tenths bushels 

 per acre, and a variety of the same name from Michigan four and 

 eight-tenths bushels per acre. After three years, however, the foreign 

 variety yielded as much as the home-grown Harvest King. This ex- 

 periment showed not only a loss during these three years, but no 

 gain over the home-grown variety after the complete readjustment. 

 We have a large number of similar illustrations where the differences 

 in yield are very large, but since the limits of this paper will not 

 admit their introduction they will occur in another paper on this 

 subject. It is here, also, that the farmer is deceived, because his new 

 variety, having done well last year, he has faith in its future action, but 

 the yields generally get lower and lower. Moreover, few farmers will 

 keep a poor variety on their farms until it becomes thoroughly adapted 

 to the new conditions, or, in other words, till their soils develop varieties 

 adapted to them. If we take the cabbage plant for example, which in 

 its domesticated state is adapted to a rich, moist loam soil, and grow it on 

 a poor, dry sandy soil it will, as Darwnn puts it, ''Eevert to a large extent, 

 or even wholly, to the aboriginal stock, due largely to the definite action 

 of the soil." Strickland big boll cotton is especially adapted to a rich, 

 moist bottomland soil, the Waverly silt loam. The Toole variety to a 

 rather poor, well drained upland soil, the ISTorfolk sand, when either of 

 these varieties is grown in the soil environment particularly adapted to 

 the other, the yield is materially decreased thereby. If we take the 

 Drake cluster cotton, which has been kept pure for twenty-five years on 

 the Houston clay, and grow it on rich, moist, bottom land soil, it at 

 once "goes to weed" and yields comparatively little fruit. The Minne- 

 sota Experiment Station has found that varieties of grain adapt them- 

 selves to local conditions, and "varieties from seed brought from a 

 distance must usually become acclimated before they can do their best." 

 But when the readjustment to the new environment is complete and the 

 plant begins to produce good yields, close examination will reveal a 

 variety quite different from the one originally planted, as we said 

 above. To illustrate : The Strickland big boll cotton was the result of 

 the complete readjustment of the Bohemian big boll from the black, 

 waxy land of Texas to the Waverly silt loam in Alabama. The result is 

 a much smaller boll. It takes over sixty bolls of the Strickland to make 

 a pound of seed cotton, while forty-six to forty-eight of the Bohemian 

 are quite sufficient. Many other instances that have come under our 

 personal observation might be given to show that varieties of plants 

 transferred from one soil type to another to which they were not adapted 



