1920.] 



Grass and Clover Seed Grow inc. 



:>!:>> 



varieties will do very well in the eastern parts of Kngland, 

 their success is less and less marked as one moves westwards, 

 until a line is reached about the middle of the country beyond 

 which the crop is not profitable. Nevertheless, cases have been 

 noted in counties considerably further west than this line, where 

 the ordinary seed is not worth sowing, but where certain 

 individual plants from a crop, if sown, will last up to twelve or 

 fifteen years, while the rest disappear in the first two or three 

 seasons. This suggests that a strain might with comparative 

 ease be selected from among the ordinary Lucernes, which would 

 stand quite well, even in the more western counties. In view 

 of the valuable properties of good Lucerne, such selection ought 

 to prove well worth while. 



Sainfoin, Trefoil and Kidney Vetch. — These crops are 

 usually to be found, as might be expected, in the chalky dis- 

 tricts. The largest seed-producing areas are the chalkv districts 

 of the eastern counties, the northern part of Hampshire, and 

 Oolitic areas in the Cotswold region. 



The case of Sainfoin furnishes a very interesting and instruc- 

 tive object lesson in the matter of automatic selection. In 

 Hampshire, long Sainfoin leys are employed, which frequently 

 remain down for a dozen years or so ; for such leys it is obviously 

 necessary that a long-lived strain be employed. It is found that 

 the sainfoins seeded in East Anglia will not stand in these leys 

 for anything like as many years as Hampshire-grown Sainfoin. 

 Here is a case, commonly ascribed to acclimatisation, the 

 true explanation of which would seem to be that, whereas in 

 East Anglia seed is taken from a Sainfoin crop at an early age 

 (often in its second year), in Hampshire the crop is not harvested 

 for seed until it has been down for some six or more years. 

 Since short-lived strains commonly produce more seed per 

 plant per annum than their longer-lived relatives, the effect 

 in the one case will be to reduce the longevity of fche 

 strain by early harvesting through a succession of generations, 

 and in the other case to enhance the permanence of the strain 

 "by ensuring that seed in each generation is only taken from the 

 longest lived plants. These two practices, having been in opera- 

 tion for many years, have thus naturally resulted in Hampshire 

 Sainfoin being a much more permanent strain than East 

 Anglian Sainfoin. 



Although in this particular case the effect has to a large 

 extent been wrought involuntarily, there is no reason why the 

 Bame system should not be employed with a number of other 



