WILD RICE IN EAST NORFOLK. 
605 
my own garden failed to fruit. The following season one plant 
from a fresh supply of seed flowered, and I gathered a little 
seed from it in October ; and on June 23rd, 1902, I put several 
resulting plants into 12-inch pots, and stood them in a trench 
dug in the centre of a span-roof greenhouse. They began to 
show bloom on August 13th, and made splendid specimen 
plants, growing over eight feet high, with stems more than 
half-an-inch in diameter. 
On Oct. 3rd I gathered the first ripe seed from them, and 
eventually I had over two pints of seed for disposal. Some I 
gave to friends, but the greater part I sowed myself, some 
broadcast and some rolled up in balls of clay, at Hickling, 
Catfield, and Burnt-Fen Broad, Neatishead. From these 
sowings there were no signs of any result whatever, the local 
fauna having probably consumed any plants that may have 
appeared. Plants kept at home did not bloom this season. In 
1907, Mr. W. Watson sent me a fresh supply of Kew seed, but 
again I failed in my efforts to propagate it. 
In June, 1909, I was surprised to receive a quantity of 
imported seed in a dry state from Kew, with a note from Mr. 
Watson saying that it was not too late to sow it. I tried about 
half-a-pint of it, and quite 90 per cent, germinated, but the 
plants failed to do more than raise their leaf blades above the 
water line, though they kept alive until killed by the frost in 
November. 1 had some difficulty this year with frogs getting 
into the tubs, which were plunged into the open ground : they 
broke or pulled down the leaves to the water-level. Some of the 
seed was sown in a pond newly made on the Ludham Marshes, 
and some at Calthorpe Broad, Ingham, but no young plants 
appeared in either case. I kept some of this supply of seed, 
dry, until the early spring of 1910, and, although two years old, 
quite 50 per cent, retained its vitality ; but, alas ! none of the 
plants grew to more than two feet high. Thus ended my 
attempts at introducing a very desirable alien. 
Few people care to chronicle their failures ; but after hearing 
or reading about the attractiveness of wild rice for wildfowl 
abroad, some of my readers may like to make further attempts 
VOL. IX. 
K 
