MISCELLANY 



229 



Dr. A. D. Hopkins, at present connected with the 

 Bureau of Entomology of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, but formerly of the West Virginia Experiment 

 Station, for many years grew timothy for seed. For 

 this purpose the crop is ordinarily sown thinly, so that, 

 during the first harvest year, the plants are sufficiently 

 distinct to permit of the observation of individual 

 plants. Many years' close observation showed that 

 the crop consists of a large number of constantly re- 

 curring forms quite easily distinguished. A number 

 of plants, each representing one of these forms, were 

 taken up and separated into as many parts as the 

 nature of the case permitted ; in this way each plant 

 became the parent, by division, of a large number of 

 plants, all set side by side in a plat. When seed was 

 harvested from these plats it was found that the 

 plants produced from these seeds reproduced faithfully 

 the characters of the original selection. Each original 

 selection, therefore, became the parent of a variety. 

 Several of these varieties are now growing in the grass- 

 garden of the Department of Agriculture, where they 

 have been the object of careful observation. They 

 differ markedly in character of growth, earliness, size, 

 etc. Some of them are evidently far superior to the 

 ordinary timothy as grown by farmers (which is a 

 mixture of superior and inferior varieties), some for 

 seed production, others as hay plants, and others as 

 pasture plants. (Some of Dr. Hopkin's varieties of 

 timothy exhibited at the Paris Exposition are shown 

 in Figs. 46 and 47.) 



In a manner exactly similar, Mr. A. B. Leckenby, 

 Director of the Eastern Oregon Experiment Station, 



