A. St Clair Caporn 249 



HojJetowii grains are a good deal smaller and narrower. They have 

 white husks and stiff, twisted awns. The straw is of medium length. 



The two parents present a marked difference in habit in their earlier 

 stages. In Fig. 1 the taller plant on the left is Mesdag, that on the 

 right Hopetown. 



Both are of the same age and were grown in adjacent rows. The 

 Mesdag plant is just about to send up the floriferous shoots, here limited 

 to one main head. The late ripening Hopetown, on the other hand, 

 tillers profusely; so that at the time when the Mesdag panicles are 

 completely out of their sheaths, its own more numerous panicles have 

 yet to burst through. 



The Fi and F., Generations. 



Little information as to the rate of ripening in these two gene- 

 rations was available'. As far as can be gathered, the F^ plants, which 

 were strongly awned, with brown grains somewhat lighter in shade 

 than those of Mesdag, and also with more compact panicles, were ripe 

 before the late parent, yet not quite so soon as the early parent. 



The Fi generation was harvested when the majority of the plants 

 were fully mature ; that is to say, when a certain proportion must have 

 been over ripe. Even then, however, there was a number of very 

 green plants to be seen. A sample of 24 plants contained 4 without 

 any yellowness at all in the glumes. This sample probably gave a 

 rough idea of the general composition of the whole F^ ; but the j)ossi- 

 bility of picking out entirely green panicles from an assortment made 

 up of so many different stages in ripeness not occurring until most of 

 the crop had been rubbed out for the next sowings, no real confirmation 

 of this assumption can be brought forward. Nevertheless it will be ■ 

 worth noting here that the F^ rows derived from the 4 green panicles 

 all tended to ripen late. (Table I, Nos. 103 — 106 inclusive.) 



The F, Generation. 



A far more detailed study of the F^ generation was made. 10(3 F^ 

 heads were rubbed out and planted, all on the same day. A mw of 

 each of the parents was also .sown in proximity to the rest of the crop. 



' The experimeut, which came iuto my hiinds after the F2 crop had been harvested, 

 was unfortunately the victim of several interruptions, and suffered accordingly from 

 want of attention. All that could be done was simply to grow on the first two generatiors 

 without making any careful ob.servatious. Needless to say, the lack of a concise con- 

 ception of the Fi ripening period is keenly felt in any attempt to explain later results. 



