Seeds of Finest Quality. 91 



of any experiment having been made with the view of 

 determining how long it would take, say, for cocksfoot 

 plants, grown from the finest New Zealand seed, to 

 approximate to plants grown from the, comparatively 

 speaking, dwarf plants which are natives of our country, 

 or from the seeds of any other inferior cocksfoot plants. 

 On one occasion, in 1884, I gathered cocksfoot seed from 

 plants in this park, and Mr. James Hunter, of Chester, 

 on June 26, 1885, sowed it in line with New Zealand 

 cocksfoot, American, and seed of German growth. He 

 reported that the last three germinated on July 4, and 

 the former on July 13. The Clifton Park cocksfoot 

 plants were very dwarf, and quite different in habit of 

 growth from the other cocksfoot, and gave a much 

 smaller amount of grass, and yet it is almost certain 

 that the fine New Zealand cocksfoot was the produce of 

 plants very similar to those growing wild in this park. 

 But though plants will, of course, in time improve or 

 decline to the climate and soil they live in, it is probable 

 that many years would elapse before a .decided change 

 would occur one way or another. The only means I 

 have of forming an opinion here is in the case of a field, 

 the Lake field, 20 acres — low-lying flat alluvial land — 

 which was partly sown with seed supplied by a local 

 seedsman, and partly supplied by one of the most 

 eminent seedsmen in England. The local seedsman 

 knew that the comparison was to be made, and, no doubt, 

 did his best, and there was no reason to complain of 

 the germination or trueness of his seed, but the difference 

 in the result was most marked, and the cattle declined 

 to eat his plants so decidedly that one would imagine 

 they had been fenced off the field. It was interesting 

 to observe how exactly the cattle had stopped grazing 

 at the exact spot where the rival seedsman met, and 

 eventually 1 had to send a boy to herd the cattle on to 

 the acres which had been allotted to the local seedsman, 

 and though the field (it was sown in 1884) is now (1898) 

 grazed evenly over without compulsion there is still a 



