ON SOME UNTRIED EXPERIMENTS 



species that are familiar enough in fields and 

 waste places, but which at present are regarded as 

 weeds rather than as friends of the agriculturist. 

 Some Cultivated Grasses 



Some of the most striking results I have ever 

 seen in the way of development of grasses were 

 obtained with the perennial known as the Sweet 

 Vernal Grass (Anthox anthiim). 



This grass is exceedingly variable. A few 

 years ago I raised about fifty thousand plants in 

 boxes. From the seedlings I selected the largest 

 and the smallest; the broad leafed and the nar- 

 row; the dark green and the light green; and those 

 showing any other striking peculiarity. 



By planting the individuals that presented 

 these diversified traits in plots by themselves, and 

 carefully selecting their seed, races of perennial 

 sweet vernal grass were obtained presenting the 

 widest range of characteristics. 



Thus varieties were produced that would bear 

 almost no seed, and others that bore seed abun- 

 dantly; some which increased from the roots with 

 great rapidity, and others that increased very 

 slowly. 



From among the thousands of plants that were 

 raised and scrutinized, I found two or three that 

 would grow more than one hundred times as fast 

 as the smaller ones. Not only was this startling 



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