36 PASTURE STUDIES: SOME RESULTS. 
allowed to run for five months, and in the meantime a further 25 
per cent. germinated normally, leaving only 1 per cent. which was 
still hard.” 
Thus seeds which were capable of immediate germination, 
provided their coats were made permeable to water, remained 
dormant for eight months under conditions which in other seeds 
produced rapid germination, and after being allowed to dry for 
four months were still capable of normal germination after treat- 
ment with emery paper. 
All these results leave little room for doubt that dead ripe 
seeds of this plant may remain dormant in the soil for a very long 
period, and still be capable of producing normal seedlings when 
by some means their coats are rendered permeable.’ It is to be 
expected therefore that where a pasture field in which there is a 
fair development of the plant is brought under cultivation, the 
plant may appear in the subsequent pasture in some quantity 
although no seed be sown. 
The seed of at least two varieties of this plant are obtainable 
commercially. These are known as “ White or Dutch Clover” 
( Trifolium repens) and “Wild White Clover” (Z. repens, var. 
silvestre), (7), (20).2. The value of these two varieties of seeds in 
the formation of a pasture has been examined by the writer, and 
the results published elsewhere (9). These results showed that 
on an average, with the same weight of seed, at 24 years from 
sowing, 19-7 per cent. of the ground on which “Wild White 
Clover” seed had been sown was covered by the plant, as com- 
pared with 2-13 per cent. of the ground on which “ White or 
Dutch” seed had been sown. 
1 The conditions of the experiment are in some ways different from those 
which occur in the seil. It is possible that soil water has a ditlereut effect 
from tap water. Soil organisms (except animals) are not likely to have any 
effect on them as the hard seeds of the experiment were quite immune from the 
attacks of fungi. 
“It is difficult to understand why the wild form shonld be regarded by 
seedsmen as the variety, as it is very much more probable that the ‘‘ Dutch ” 
is the variety, produeed by continued cultivation and unconscious selection of 
the wild form, 
