EXPERIMENTS IN THE GROWTH OF PLANTS. 209 
the original, the resulting crop being in all particulars the Vicia sativa of 
authors. 
In the autumn of the same year was planted a plot of the like selected seed 
and with the same result, affording stems as much as 2 feet in length, with 
leaflets half an inch broad, its original size being about 6 inches long, with 
leaflets a little more than the eighth of an inch broad. 
From 1855, I have kept up a plot of each set, thus developing a winter 
and spring variety of V. sativa from V. angustifolia, whilst at the same time 
T havea plot in which the crop is permanently maintained by self-sown seeds; 
these, though larger than in wild nature, still preserve the rounded pods 
and small seeds with but little variation. The spring- and autumn-sown 
varieties are about as distinctive in appearance as are the agricultural forms 
of these. 
Trifolium pratense.—This form in cultivation undergoes great changes, 
particularly in size and colour; it becomes many times larger, and its heads 
of flowers increase in size but are less bright in colour. This plant is found 
wild in all rich meadows and pastures; its place however in poor sandy soils 
where lime isabsent is supplied by the Trifolium medium, on which account 
the latter plant was some few years since introduced into agriculture, to 
ensure a crop where the 7. pratense usually failed. The seedsmen used to 
supply it under the name of 7rifolium medium, its proper botanical designa- 
tion; but it is a curious circumstance that all the samples of this seed now in 
the market are only those of a variety of 7. pratense, and hence at present 
the best-informed seedsmen no longer send it out under the original desig- 
nation of 7. medium, the “ cow grass” of the farmer, but with the name of 
Trifolium pratense perenne, the fact being now well established that we have 
two varieties of broad clover in cultivation, whilst the true 7. medium * has 
been lost to agriculture until it be again introduced from wild plants; and 
the whole evidence with regard to this subject tends to show that it has not 
been lost from neglect, as it has been in constant cultivation; but it has 
gradually merged into the 7. pratense; and at this present moment the so- 
called “ broad clover” on the one hand and cow grass on the other are 
_searcely distinguishable, and seedsmen are constantly threatened with actions 
for supplying the wrong seed. This therefore remains as a matter for ex- 
periment, not only on account of the practical advantage of reviving the lost 
form to the farmer, but in order to settle the botanical question, as hitherto 
the botanist has never had a doubt of the distinctness, as species, of the 7. 
pratense aud T. mediumt. 
_ Melilotus—Of these the M. officinalis and M. Taurica are kept up from 
self-sown seeds, as well as a plot of each drilled in rows the latter ; I received 
some years since under the name of “ Cabool clover,” and I have since 
obtained the same from the seedsman with the designation of ‘ Buchara 
clover:” they are probably only exotic forms of M. leucantha of the British 
‘flora. 
_ The Melilots among the Papilionacea and the Anthoxanthum odoratum 
in the list of British grasses are alike remarkable for containing a peculiar 
aromatic principle, to which as it occurs in the latter the sweet smell of 
_ * It may be well here to note that during the past week I have received some “ cow- 
grass” from Cheshire, which has more of the details of the true 7. medium than any I have 
yet seen: this case proves my position, because a great part of Cheshire has a subsoil of 
‘Marine sand, the bottom of the old strait which separated England from Wales, and on this 
it continues ; and hence I view it only as an arenaceous form of 7. pratense. But this fact 
points out the propriety of getting cow-grass seed from the Cheshire sands. 
T Seeds of 7. medium from different localities would be highly valued by me. No seeds- 
Man can now supply the true form. 
1857 P 
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