ON LIVE STOCK FOOD 



reduced to a minimum, or, if possible, wholly 

 removed. 



The seeds that I received were of various 

 colors. My first move was to have the seeds sorted, 

 placing white ones, black ones, and green and 

 brown by themselves. The seeds were then 

 planted in separate lots; a fifth lot being reserved 

 for a mixture of the seeds of uncertain shades. 



Thus it was possible at the outset to determine 

 whether the production of plants having a large 

 brucine content was associated with any particular 

 color of seeds. Should such be found to be the 

 case, the experiment would obviously be short- 

 ened, as only the plant bearing the minimum 

 amount of brucine would be used for further 

 testing. Experiments showed that the plants from 

 the white seed apparently contained an appreci- 

 ably less quantity of brucine than the black ones. 



As an additional element in the selection, I 

 chose, as is my custom, the seed plants that started 

 very early in the Spring. From among these the 

 next selection was made of the plants that had 

 broad foliage and continued to make a very strong 

 growth. Thus several objects were attained 

 almost from the outset. A second selection along 

 the same lines showed that some plants have a 

 much smaller brucine content than others, and 

 that it will be quite possible to separate these out 



[81] 



