Trifoliuni Pratcnsc QiiinqucfoUum. 53 



year, and set seed In August. At this time I examined 

 an equal number of leaves on the two halves and ob- 

 tained the following result: 



Number of leaflets: 3 4 5 6 7 



On garden soil: 12 25 34 20 18 



On sandy soil: 18 19 35 19 17 



The behavior of the two halves was identical ; the 

 difference in the soil exerted no visible effect. Moreover 

 the seeds on the two halves were of about the same size 

 and produced in roughly equal numbers. The two sets 

 were harvested separately and sowai in the following 

 spring (1894) in pans. When the young plants had about 

 3 leaves they were examined. Calling a plant with a 

 tetra- or a pentamerous leaf "abnormal" the result was : 



Seeds from garden soil 30^ abnormal 

 " sandy soil 24% 



The experiment involved 150 and 200 seedlings. The 

 lormal ones were further sorte 

 composition of their primary leaves. 



abnormal ones were further sorted according to the 



Both counts therefore gave a difference in favor of 

 the better nourished seeds. For further investigation 

 I selected those which appeared most abnormal from 

 both series, i. e., the seedlings w^ith a trimerous primordial 

 leaf, and planted them out under similar conditions. In 

 July when each plant had twenty or more stems, I pulled 

 them up, selecting for examination the ten best plants 

 from each group; i. e., those ten, the leaves of which 

 numbered about 100 per plant. The leaves were recorded 

 separately for each individual, and as there happened to 



