New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 163 



the fact that the number of seeds in any given weight of seed may 

 vary considerably, it was evident, that, if such standards for the 

 agricultural seeds could be formulated, the question might be 

 raised in any case as to the facts in regard to that particular 

 sample if the percentage of purity was determined on the basis 

 of an average number of seeds per unit weight for that kind of 

 seed ; for this reason actual counts were made in all official 

 samples as noted on p. 157. 



In pursuing the laborious task of finding the number of seeds 

 per unit weight in each sample analyzed, many facts of interest 

 and importance emerged. The number of seeds per unit weight 

 in any one kind of seed was found to vary widely. In the case of 

 two samples of high grade alfalfa seed the number of seeds per 

 pound varied from 213,000 to 250,000. In two samples of pure 

 spring vetch, the number of seeds varied from 475 to 800 per 

 30-gram sample. In other kinds of seed the variation was equally 

 great. To a certain extent the number of seeds varied with the 

 grade of the seed. This variance in the number of seeds in different 

 samples can be attributed to a number of causes and conditions, 

 chief among them being the size of the seed, which depends upon 

 the locality in which it is grown and the more or less favorable 

 character of the season during which the seed was harvested ; 

 therefore, the number of seeds per unit weight may vary from 

 year to year, and standards for one season would not necessarily 

 be even approximate for official results for the following seasons, 

 and could not be applied, with any degree of accuracy, to all 

 samples collected during any one season if they represented seed 

 from the harvest of two different seasons, or different localities. 



Kajanus* in his work on germination tests of the different 

 colored seeds of red clover found that yellow and brown-colored 

 seeds appeared about equal in weight, but that violet-colored seeds 

 were much heavier. 



The writer made a number of counts upon red clover samples 

 to find the relative percentage of violet and yellow-colored seeds. 

 The percentage of yellow-colored seed was found to be higher than 



* Landw. Jahrb. 41 : 527-533, 1911. 



