186 



SCIENCE 



N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 762 



Some one has attributed the extreme hardiness 

 01 this alfalfa to acclimatization, assuming that 

 it was a tender variety originally. We have made 

 a careful investigation and can not find one thing 

 to show but what this alfalfa was originally per- 

 fectly hardy. There is no doubt that there would 

 be some change in over fifty years of growth in 

 Minnesota. We have lately talked with Albert 

 Gerdsen, now over eighty years old and a neighbor 

 of Mr. Grimm, and he says that Grimm's log 

 stable was always well filled with this hay after 

 he had a start. 



The statement made by a member of the 

 Minnesota Agricultural Society in the pro- 

 ceedings of that society for 1903, that some 

 of the early attempts to produce this alfalfa 

 met with discouraging results, is explained by 

 a son-in-law of Mr. Grimm to mean that the 

 discouraging results experienced by some were 

 due to improper seeding and location of the 

 alfalfa fields. Those who gave proper atten- 

 tion to details were said not to have met with 

 the discouraging results. It is possible that 

 the member of the Agricultural Society was 

 referring to some other alfalfa, since he states 

 that the alfalfa to which he refers was brought 

 in by Swiss immigrants; whereas, the Grimm 

 family had been residents of Baden, Germany. 



The " Alt Deutsche Frankische " lucerne, as 

 determined by both Mr. Brand and the writer, 

 belongs to this same group of variegated al- 

 falfas as do the commercial sand lucerne and 

 Grimm alfalfa. This is said to be much more 

 enduring under unfavorable situations than is 

 the ordinary alfalfa. It is the sort commonly 

 cultivated in the section from which Mr. 

 Grimm originally came and it is quite possible 

 that this constitutes the original stock from 

 which he secured his seed. 



The apparent correlation between the varie- 

 gated flowers and associated characteristics of 

 hardiness and drought resistance, makes it of 

 great moment to determine if it is not possible 

 that these dilute hybrids are possessed of such 

 qualities as hardiness and drought resistance 

 without the tedious selective elimination called 

 for in the acclimatization of a hardy strain 

 from ordinary alfalfa. It is in all probability 

 true that any non-hardy individuals present in 

 the original seed have succumbed, but the fact 



remains that there was apparently present a 

 considerable percentage of hardy plants in the 

 Grimm alfalfa at the time of its introduction 

 into this country. The presence of several 

 rather definite different forms, both in the 

 Grimm alfalfa and in the commercial sand 

 lucerne and in about the same proportions in 

 each, would indicate that there has been little 

 wholesale elimination of the Gri mm alfaKa 

 individuals. It may further be stated that the 

 Grimm alfalfa is not perfectly hardy even at 

 the present time in Minnesota, since the state 

 experiment station has been compelled within 

 the past ten years on at least two occasions to 

 plow up fields, owing to winter-killing the first 

 or second winter. It is, however, much hardier 

 than ordinary alfalfa, and the studies above 

 referred to indicate that the primary explana- 

 tion of the hardiness of this strain is in all 

 probability the presence of the apparent small 

 percentage of M. falcata in its ancestry, rather 

 than by reason of acclimatization, since its 

 introduction into this country. 



J. M. Westgate 

 BuKEAu OF Plant Industry, 



U. S. Department of Agbicultuee, 

 Washington, D. C. 



a case of diplacusis depending upon the 



TYMPANIC mechanism 



Under the title : " The Role of the Tympanic 

 Mechanism in Audition,'" W. V. D. Bingham 

 reports a rather unusual case, in which the 

 sensibility for hearing remained almost nor- 

 mal after the removal of the tympanic mem- 

 brane and the first two auditory ossicles from 

 both ears. In that connection a description 

 of the following case of " diplakusis binau- 

 ralis disharmonika," may be of interest. This 

 is not reported with the assumption that the 

 case is in all respects unique, though I do not 

 find in the literature of the subject anything 

 wholly similar to the present one. The case 

 under discussion is also of special value on 

 account of the fact that the patient is a 

 musician of exceptional talent and training, 

 having been for a number of years president 



^Psychol. Rev., XIV., 229-243, "The ROle of 

 the Tympanic Mechanism in Audition." 



