1921.] The Nomenclature of Agricultural Plants. 



179 



This standard of merit obviously brings with it many 

 difficulties. One is dealing with qualities which are not 

 necessarily, or usually, correlated with any morphological 

 character. No one, for example, on looking at an individual 

 w 7 heat plant of a variety unknown to him, can say whether 

 its progeny will give a high or a low yield. As a result of 

 long experience the expert can often recognise a variety and 

 say: " This is Squareheads Master, it will give a bigger crop 

 than that, which is Fife," but this prediction is only the result 

 of constant trials of the two varieties, and not because any 

 external character betrays the yielding capacity of the 

 individual. Xow it is certain that within any commercial 

 variety there are individual stocks which possess capacity for 

 yield, or for producing high quality grain, or for other valuable 

 physiological qualities in a greater or lesser degree than the 

 average, without betraying the fact except after prolonged 

 test. The better stocks, when isolated, deserve encourage- 

 ment; but if each small advance in useful physiological 

 characters were considered to be a justification for a new name, 

 instead of decreasing the number of names, it would be 

 uncontrollably augmented. 



There is obviously a distinction between these productions 

 and those which combine improved qualities with morpho- 

 logical differences ; and to mark that distinction it is suggested 

 that the following definitions shall be adopted: — 



Variety. — Any group of plants morphologically indistinguish- 

 able from one another, but morphologically distinct from 

 any other plant or group of plants of the same species, 

 shall constitute a variety. 

 Strain. — Any group of plants physiologically distinct from any 

 other plant or group of plants of the same variety (as 

 above defined) shall constitute a strain of that variety. 

 The oldest known strain of a variety shall be termed the 

 type. 



It is proposed that only " varieties " as above defined should 

 be entered into the Registers with distinct names, and that 



strains " should be entered under the type name with the 

 name of the originator or producer as a prefix, e.g., " Brown's 

 Essex Rough Chaff." 



Should an originator claim to have produced a new, superior 

 variety, it should be tested before admission to the Register, 

 in competition with the best representative strains of at lenst 

 two of the older varieties, and should only be entered as a 

 new variety if both the above claims are proved correct. 



