August, 1922 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE 



407 



United States types are very similar and 

 undoubtedly give rise to some excellent hay 

 strains. French are poor and stemmy, the 

 least persistent and the least desirable. New- 

 Zealand are in many respects remarkably 

 similar and contain by far the most leafy 

 strains — whether they are persistent we 

 are not yet prepared to say. 



RED CLOVER. Local .strains are by far 

 the most persi.stent and decidedly bulky. 

 Canada and U. S. A. Mammoth are best of 

 the foreign types but samples are inclined 

 to be mixed and variable. France and Chile 

 are generally fairly reliable if only a first 

 harvest year is desired; Chilean are apt to 

 be winter killed in wet cold seasons. Ita- 

 lian are hopeless. 



It would take me too far into the realm 

 of surmise to attempt to account for the real 

 and obvious differences that exist in an ag- 

 gregate strain sense as between Nationality 

 and Nationality — but the fact is what mat- 

 ters, for it surely suggests the tremendous 

 possibilities that exist for the improvement of 

 herbage plants. 



I have frequently heard it said, by those 

 who I venture to think should know better, 

 that it is almost hopeless to set out to 

 "breed" these cross-fertilizing herbage 

 plants, and the case of maize is cited to show 

 how little chance there is of obtaining virile, 

 selfing strains. The wOiole point of course 

 is that tremendous improvements can be 

 achieved without attempting to obtain some- 

 thing that is anything approaching genetic- 

 ally pure, and we must expect gradual de- 

 terioration from crossing with less desirable 

 strains. 



Let us, however, examine the facts. I will 

 first take Cocksfoot (the species upon which 

 I am myself working). I have a living 

 Cocksfoot museum of several thousand plants 

 collected from all parts of England and 

 Wales. Generally if one digs up ten or 

 twenty plants from one field or from a few 

 yards run of hedge, it will be found that 

 these represent several quite distinct gro\vth 

 forms. If, however, plants are taken from 

 a striking habitat, e.g. from the wind swept 

 tops of our Cornish cliffs, my museum shows 

 that all the plants will be to all intents and 

 purposes similar. Thus these plants cross- 

 pollenating amongst themselves have been 

 reduced practically to a unit strain and I 

 should be greatly surprised if under condi- 

 tions of controlled pollenation they do not 



continue to do so at Aberystwyth; or if I 

 covered a five acre field with these plants I 

 should produce pure seed of the strain. It 

 is important in this connection to note that 

 most if not all of the strains of Cocksfoot 

 on which I am working flower later than 

 the less desirable ones. 



Again it is remarkable how pure in the 

 strain sense are some of our old strains such 

 as the Cornish Red Clovers, although often 

 grown in the close proximity of Broad Reds 

 and ordinary Late Flowering Reds — gene- 

 tically of course they are utterly impure — 

 having a wide variation in leaf markings and 

 otner intimate botanical characters of little 

 significance to the grazier. 



As to breeding grasses I feel convinced 

 that good results can be achieved by a system 

 of bunch breeding starting from two or three 

 practically identical plants, although I favour 

 the plan so promising with maize of selfing 

 for a number of generations and then cross- 

 ing. In this connection it is interesting to 

 note that from all our selfed grasses we are 

 encountering albenoism and kindred pheno- 

 mena. The great problem as I see it with 

 herbage plants is not so much to breed the 

 strains you want as to decide just what you 

 want, and what precise growth forms will in 

 fact give you what is agronomically desired. 

 At this stage I am prone to ask, what do 

 we want.'' In England the war showed us 

 the danger and in a large measure 

 the uselessness of our permanent grass, 

 (please do not think that all or most 

 of our permanent grass is excellent) and 

 I am convinced that really poor permanent 

 grass cannot husband and make for fertility 

 as can excellent temporary grass ploughed 

 down at regular intervals and while the sward 

 is still excellent. It is surely the country 

 which maintains a large area under excel- 

 lent temporary grass^ — whether it be in the 

 form of grass and clover mixtures or alfalfa 

 leys — that can face a food crisis with equa- 

 nimity and can adopt a plough policy at a 

 moment's notice. That was not England's 

 case during the war. In England then our 

 problem is to breed three to five year persis- 

 tent herbage plants. It is not for me to pre- 

 sume to say what your problem in Canada 

 is but I suppose if the plough is to leave a 

 legacy of fertility behind it, and not to leave 

 land reverting to inferior range and bush, 

 you too want your persistent temporary past- 

 ure plants, and this I understand is being 



