= — No ee ee eee 
MEDICAGO FALCATA, A YELLOW-FLOWERED ALFALFA. 57 
yielding more abundantly. Unless a pure strain of Medicago falcata 
that will produce two or more cuttings in a season can be developed 
by selection, this method alone is limited in the scope of its usefulness. 
When the need arrives for special strains of alfalfa for pasturage 
it doubtless will be met to some extent by selection from the low- 
growing and spreading forms of the species. Hybrid strains might 
have some difficulty in competing successfully with such selections, 
even though they do not recover quickly after cutting. 
HYBRIDIZATION. 
While pure strains of Medicago falcata for hay and pasture may 
find a permanent place among our cultivated crops, it is not in this 
role that the species promises to become important. Its greatest 
value lies in its ability to form fertile hybrids with Medicago sativa. 
This conclusion has been quite generally reached by those who have 
investigated the species carefully and who appreciate the important 
part that it has taken in the development of our commercial strains 
of alfalfa. An examination of early botanical and agricultural 
literature indicates that it was common in Europe many centuries 
ago, and probably it has hybridized with Medicago sativa since an 
indefinitely remote date. The effect of this on our commercial strains 
of alfalfa is difficult to estimate. The origin of our more or less dis- 
tinct varieties of commercial alfalfa has not as yet been well deter- 
mined. The readily recognizable hybrids have been roughly assigned 
to what is known as the variegated group and it has been assumed 
that those which do not show variegation in color of flowers are 
pure strains. Careful investigations may reveal at least a trace of 
Medicago falcata in the parentage of many distinct commercial 
varieties. Its part in the development of the well-known Grimm 
alfalfa has been fully discussed and generally recognized. Instead 
of indicating the possibility of developing better strains by hybridi- 
zation, this recognition has had a tendency to create the impression 
that the chances of producing anything better than the Grimm 
variety through hybridization are very remote. There is, however, 
good ground for taking the opposite view. 
_ The stock from which Grimm alfalfa originated came from Baden, 
Germany, and in all probability had been produced there for many 
seed generations. The hybridization which took place in the develop- 
ment of this stock was doubtless a more or less continuous process in 
which the local forms of Medicago falcata were the only forms con- 
cerned. There are numerous forms not found in that portion of 
Europe, and the possibility of obtaining hybrids between certain of 
these and good forms of Medicago sativa seems to offer a particularly 
promising field. 
