Trifoliuin Pratcnsc Oiiiiiqucfoliiim. 39 



creased, on account, doubtless, of the improved conditions 

 of life. In July and September, 1889, I counted 46 

 tetramerous and 19 pentamerous leaves amongst a large 

 numl)er of normal ones. But there was no sign of a 6- 

 or 7-foliate leaf on these two parent plants of my race. 



I saved seed from them in the autumn of 1889 and 

 sow^ed it next spring on a bed in my experimental garden. 

 I obtained something over one hundred plants of which 

 about one-half showed at least one four-leaved leaf. The 

 rest were removed either in July before they flowered, 

 or whilst they were in flower. On September 1, I selected 

 the four plants which bore the largest number of ab- 

 normal leaves, and destroyed the rest. These four bore 

 64 tetramerous and 44 pentamerous leaves. Of the de- 

 stroyed plants the best had only an average of about 5 

 abnormal leaves per plant. This year again there were 

 no instances of 6- or 7-foliate leaves. 



In 1891 I obtained the third generation from the 

 seeds of these four selected plants, sowing in the garden 

 as before. It consisted of 300 plants on which I exam- 

 ined 8366 leaves when they were beginning to flower. Of 

 these 1117 or M'/f were tetra- or pentamerous. Leaves 

 with 6 or 7 leaflets were not observed ; they were first 

 seen in August and September of that year. The number 

 of plants with at least one quadrifoliate leaf also ex- 

 liil)ited an advance. There were about 50% of them in 

 1890, Ijut now there were nearly 80%. These plants 

 had on an average about four tetramerous and as many 

 pentamerous leaves. At the beginning of August I chose 

 the twenty best individuals and destroyed all the rest. 

 I only harvested seed from the nine best plants among 

 them and in the following spring only sowed the seeds 

 of a single seed-parent which seemed to me to be the 



