aTosent in raost of the fields. This seemed to indicate that, 

 under certain conditions, seed may develop abundantly «ith- 

 out the presence of insects to trip the flowers. 



In the study of the fertilization of the alfalfa flowers 

 conducted at Chinook and Havre, Mont., in 1909, it was espec- 

 ially desired to find out whether alfalfa flowers sometimes 

 do become automatically tripped, and develop seed without 

 the presence of insects or other outside agency to trip the 

 flowers, or whether the flowers might not develop seed 

 under some conditions without the flowers being tripped. 

 This problem was rendered difficult to solve, however, by the 

 fact that in 1909, in nearly all fields, but a very sma.ll 

 proportion of flowers were developing pods, and these pods 

 seemed generally to have been tripped "by the limited number 

 of insects which were present, or by some other external 

 means. It was observed, however, that two of the plants 

 enclosed in netting at Chinook, which had been producing a 

 good crop of seed throughout the sea.son, while most of the 

 surrounding plants were producing but very few pods, were 

 producing pods even from those racemes of flowers from which 

 insects had been excluded. Accordingly, all wilted and all 

 unopened flowers were removed from a number of racemes under 

 the netting, leaving only opened, untripped flowers, which 

 were closely observed during the following da3'-s. 



In a day or two, it was observed that several of the 



(29) 



