EXPERIMENTS WITH FODDER PLANTS, 945 
by erecting showy flags and sign-boards for the benefit of the bees 
of to-day, for the purpose of saving them both time and labour. 
The hive bee on its arrival here, after having been educated to 
the high standard it is said to have attained in the old world, 
works upon, not our introduced flowers of “red, blue, and purple” 
so much as upon our simple white and yellow ones—so unlike 
what they ought to have done, according to the education they 
had received ‘at our antipodes. Is it not queer that our bees 
should have gone back in their tastes for colours when they 
crossed over the equatorial line and came this side of the world ? 
No. 13.—EXPERIMENTS WITH FODDER PLANTS — 
NATIVE AND FOREIGN 
By D. McA ping, Pathologist, Department of Agriculture, 
Victoria. 
(Read Tuesday, 11 January, 1898.) 
[ Abstract. | 
THE seeds of about 120 varieties of grasses and fodder-plants 
were received from the United States Department of Agriculture, 
for trial in Victoria, and the seeds of various native grasses from 
South Australia, so that 140 different plots were sown for experi- 
mental purposes. The object of the experiment was to test their 
growth under different conditions of soil and climate, heat and 
moisture, but mainly to prove their drought-resisting properties. 
Only eighty of the varieties germinated, and none of these were 
native grasses. Twenty-one species supplied from America resisted 
the drought, and of these seven were conspicuous for their fresh 
green growth. Out of sixteen fodder-plants not belonging to the 
grasses, two were found to be suitable and drought-resisting, viz., 
Hairy Vetch and Much-branched Polygonum. Seven of the 
grasses were found to be affected with rust, and, curiously enough, 
none of these resisted the drought. 
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