clxxxvi GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



The celebrated ' Probstei rye 'is annually produced to the extent of 

 2800 to 3400 bushels ; but the amount ostensibly disjDosed of in the 

 seed trade is hundreds of thousands of bushels. 



" Dr. Nobbe, director of the Tharand Experiment Station, reports 

 finding in a sample of tall meadow fescue grass {Festicu elatior) 70 per 

 cent, of adulteration ; and two samples of so called ' grass seed,' hav- 

 ing all the external appearance of a good article, were found to con- 

 sist of grass flowers only, without a ripe seed of any sort. 



"The climax of this kind of ingenious villainy appears to have been 

 reached in Hamburg, where there recently existed a manufactory of 

 counterfeit clover seed, which was made from quartz sand, and with 

 such skill as to deceive experienced judges, who have pronounced 

 samples containing 25 per cent, of these quartz grains to be pure red 

 clover seed. 



" In a sample of Timothy seed which had the appearance of being 

 very pure. Dr. Nobbe found about 7 per cent, of foreign seeds, in 

 which he identified thirty-one different kinds, mostly weeds and in- 

 ferior grasses; and he calculated that upon a Saxon acre (== 1.37 

 English acres) no less than 1,700,000 of these foreign seeds would be 

 sown, or twenty-four upon every square foot, by using the customary 

 quantity of this pure Timothy seed. 



"Dr. Nobbe's experiments show that very many genuine commercial 

 seeds are of inferior quality, yielding much less than the proper av- 

 erage of plants, probably from admixture with the fresh stock of old 

 seed whose vitality is imiDaired or destroyed. 



"The many complaints that are made of the poor quality of the seeds 

 sent out by the Agricultural Department at Washington are in large 

 degree explained by these revelations of the state of the trade in 

 Europe. 



"It is but six or seven years since Dr. Nobbe first called public atten- 

 tion to this subject. He has begun the publication of a book contain- 

 ing full descriptions and figures of all the useful and hurtful seeds 

 that occur in commerce ; and already at some twenty experiment 

 stations farmers are able to get trustworthy examinations of seeds 

 as to purity and vitality, and at a trifling cost." 



NUTRITION OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 

 Experiments on the Feeding of Domestic Animals. The agricultural 

 science of the present day includes, as one of its most important 

 branches, the investigation of the laws of the nutrition of domestic 

 animals. Under this general subject the special one of the digesti- 

 bility of fodder materials has during the last eighteen, and especially 

 during the last ten years been studied by feeding-trials with horses, 

 oxen, cows, sheep, goats, and swine. These digestion experiments 

 have been made almost exclusively at the German agricultural ex- 

 periment stations, where over one thousand, each occupying the la- 



