Winifred E. Brenchlby 13 



The typical grassland plants and those common to arable or grassland 

 occurred in some number, Cerastium vidgaUtm, Trifoliam repens and 

 Veronica serpyllifolia being the most abundant. All these seeds were 

 segregated towards the surface, most of them being in the first three 

 inches and none at all appearing below the sixth inch. Nearly all the 

 true arable species were in the third, fourth and fifth inches with repre- 

 sentatives in the seventh and eighth inches, which furnishes an additional 

 proof that they are genuine buried seeds, as if aliens were introduced to 

 any extent one would expect to find them in the upper inches as well in 

 process of making their way down, as happened with Papaver, Sonchus 

 and the doubtful Ahliemilla. Grass seeds were abundant, chiefly in the 

 top three inches, though viable seeds were found right down to and 

 including the twelfth inch. 



(2) Barn Field Grass. 



This field was under ordinary farm cultivation till 1874, after which it 

 was laid down to grass. As it was not an experimental field the earlier 

 history is not very clear, but probably barley was the last crop carried 

 prior to grassing down. Very few true arable weeds appeared in the pans, 

 12 seedlings of four species making up the entire crop. Clover and 

 miscellaneous species characteristic of grassland were fairly abundant, 

 but again very few species were represented, only 10 varieties appearing, 

 of which three were clovers. Field observations showed that the herbage 

 of the field now consists of grasses and clover with very few other species, 

 so that it follows naturally that the species of buried weed seeds should 

 be equally few in number. The fact that most of the arable seeds occur 

 below the fifth inch of soil affords another proof that they were origin- 

 ally present and that they have not been gradually introduced by some 

 external agency such as wind and animals. A few seeds may be intro- 

 duced occasionally as the field is stocked with cattle, but the probability 

 is that most of these die off before they have any chance of being washed 

 down through the dense grass covering of the soil. If any contamination 

 from outside sources were going on, one would expect a larger number of 

 arable seeds to occur near the surface, as they would take some con- 

 siderable time to be carried down five inches, but as a matter of fact 

 only 1 such seedling appeared in the upper five inches. Trifolium repens, 

 Cerastium valgahim and Banuncimis hulhosus were present in large 

 numbers and accounted for 91 % of the grassland plants. Nearly all these 

 seeds occurred in the top six inches of soil, as was also seen in Geescroft, 

 whereas all but one of the arable weeds appeared from six to eleven inches 



