90 finportance of Sotvlui/ 



Appendix III.) In the case of the first field the take of 

 grass shows that we have lost nothing by reducing the 

 amount of seed. In the case of the second it is rather 

 early to form a decision, but, as far as we can see at 

 present, no loss will occur from reducing the amount of 

 seed, and certainly none has as yet occurred in the case 

 of the hay crop and foggage obtained froVn the field this 

 year. Let us now turn to a point of great importance 

 in the quality of the seed to be sown. 



To an unskilled agriculturist a grass plant is a grass 

 plant, and there is nothing more to be said about it as 

 long as it comes up and flourishes. But there is, of 

 course, as much, or perhaps even more, difference 

 between grasses grown from different qualities of seed 

 as there is between sheep or cattle of the same breed, 

 and the quantity and quality of the herbage to be 

 produced differ largely in accordance -with the goodness 

 or inferiority of the grasses from which the seeds put 

 down have been gathered; and the evils arising from 

 seed, which, though genuine, may be of inferior quality, 

 cannot, as far as my experience goes, be remedied for a 

 great many years — if, indeed, ever. As to these points, 

 we have had ample experience on this property by 

 giving parts of fields to rival seedsmen, and in one 

 instance a whole field to one and a whole to another ; 

 and the tenant, to whom I have previously alluded, has 

 confirmed my experience, and one day said to me that if 

 he hained, or turned the stock out of, a field sown with 

 the seed of a certain seedsman the grass recovered far 

 more quickly than it did in the case of another field sown 

 with seeds supplied by another seedsman. And this 

 supremacy of one plant over another of the same species 

 is by no means so evanescent as one would be inclined 

 to suppose, though eventually, from climatic causes and 

 the conditions of soil, there would be a tendency for the 

 inferior and superior plants to eventually arrive at 

 similar powers of production, though this is a point 

 which requires further investigation ; and I am not aware 



