124 



Germination of Indigenous Seeds. 



[May, 



Summary and Conclusions. — It has been shown that the seed 

 of indigenous species collected from various habitats tends on 

 the average to be of poor germinating capacity, and that this is 

 in part at all events due to the ravages of various insects, and 

 in part to the difficulty of harvesting large quantities of seed 

 under suitable and similar conditions. " Once grown " seed 

 appears to be less attacked by insects and to* germinate more 

 satisfactorily. It has been shown also that the collection of 

 indigenous seed is a slow and laborious process. 



The amount of labour involved is, however, not excessive if 

 it were only desired to collect indigenous seed for the purpose 

 of obtaining a supply for inclusion in mixtures by the process 

 of " once growing." 



The precise value of " once grown " bulk collected seed* of 

 such important grasses as perennial ryegrass, cocksfoot, 

 timothy, meadow foxtail and the like can only be definitely 

 settled by further investigation. With the lesson of wild white 

 clover before the agriculturist it would seem that he may 

 reasonably expect good results from the inclusion of such " once 

 grown " seed in mixtures designed for the preparation of long 

 duration and permanent grass. The trials so far conducted at 

 Aberystwyth tend to show that indigenous cocksfoot, ryegrass 

 and timothy, for instance, have important qualities for long- 

 duration pastures and are undoubtedly more persistent than 

 their commercial counterparts.! 



The growing of grasses for seed production would not entail 

 much labour — it would be necessary to keep the land 

 scrupulously clean ; this may be achieved by growing in drills 

 and by scuffling and hand hoeing. Provided weeds were 

 absent, a highly dressed sample for the purpose of sowing 

 would of course be quite unnecessary. 



It is suggested, therefore, that apart altogether from results 

 that may finally be achieved by processes of breeding and selec- 

 tion, the question of the growing of bulk collected seed of 

 indigenous grasses is one demanding considerable experimenta- 

 tion and one that should be considered as possibly an economic 

 practice by those farmers who contemplate seeding consider- 

 able areas to long duration and permanent grass. 



* i.e., seed collected without any selection from grasses growing in fairly 

 large masses together. 



f See " Preliminary Investigations with Herbage Plants/' loc. cit. 



