LIFE HISTOEY OF TIMOTHY 27 
or 90.9 per cent, of them a head developed on each, while no head 
developed on the remaining shoot (9.1 per cent). 
The results of this experiment show conclusively that either a fer- 
tile or a sterile timothy shoot may develop vegetatively from another 
shoot of either type. 
ROOTS 
The general appearance of the root system of timothy plants is 
illustrated in Plate 2, A and B. 
There is usually one seminal root on a timothy seedling. The roots 
which develop later on the primary shoot and all roots on later 
shoots developed from buds on the plant grow from nodes, generally 
from the nodes of the proaxis. They are slender or fibrous. Some 
of the roots have numerous branches and subbranches, while on the 
same plants other roots may be found which have grown without the 
development of any branches, to a length as great as or greater 
than that of the branched roots. 
DEPTH TO WHICH TIMOTHY ROOTS GROW 
The roots of timothy plants, like those of other grasses, grow at 
relatively shallow depths (41, p. 92-93). Ten Eyck found that none 
of the roots of a timothy plant which he examined in North Dakota 
extended down to a depth of 3 feet. The roots of timothy did not 
grow to so great a depth as the roots of either native prairie grass 
or of brome grass (32, p. 540). 
Woods studied the distribution of the roots at different depths in 
a timothy meadow located on a clay loam soil in Connecticut (44, 
p. 29). From the data which he obtained he calculated the air-dry 
weight of roots per acre in the first, second, third, and fourth 6-inch 
layers of soil to be as follows : 
Weight of roots from the first (upper) 6-inch layer of soil, 2,170 pounds per 
acre ; second layer, 274 pounds ; third layer, 58 pounds ; fourth layer, 14 pounds. 
PERIOD DURING WHICH TIMOTHY ROOTS CONTINUE GROWTH 
There is no evidence at hand to indicate how long a single timothy 
root may continue to live. It is not known whether the first roots 
which develop on a shoot continue to function until the upper part 
of the shoot becomes dry several months or a year later or whether 
each root lives for a more limited period of time. 
In a meadow which had been harvested in the preceding July or 
August the stubble of the shoots was examined October 22, 1914. 
At that time the haplocorms of practically all shoots were still green 
in color and firm in texture. At the node above the haplocorm of 
some of these shoots there was a bud which had expanded to form 
leaves, but which did not have any root system of its own. On the 
stubble of such shoots some of the roots were evidently continuing 
to function at that time. 
The roots of the elongated shoot of any particular season's growth 
have been observed usually to appear brown and lifeless in the 
following spring. On March 19, 1914, the stubble of a shoot of the 
preceding season's growth, together with several attached innova- 
tions each with its own root system, was partially immersed in water. 
