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The Country Gentleman s Magazine 



as a body, Avilfully practise this adul- 

 teration of C. cristatus seeds. On the 

 contrary, we feel satisfied that comparatively 

 few of them know anything at all about it, 



Fig. I. Seeds of Cynosurus cristatus magnified. 



and consequently they are only blameable in 

 so far as they ignorantly, negligently, or with- 

 out careful examination, purchase and dis- 

 seminate adulterated samples, which we bc- 



served samples of C. cristatus mixed with a 

 decidedly hurtful proportion of naked or clean 

 H. lanatus seed, in consequence of the two 

 having been grown and harvested together. 

 This home-grown seed is generally saved from 

 old policy parks or other pastures, in which 

 the crested dogstail grass naturally abounds, 

 and where, from not being well eaten down in 

 the early part of the season, its seed stems 



Fig. 2. Seeds of Holcus lanatus in their natural state magnified. 



lieve are mostly of foreign origin. But home 

 seed-growers are not altogether blameless, 

 for although they may not produce the mixture 

 complained of designedly, yet we have ob- 



Fig. 3. 



Seeds of Holcu."; lanatus in their "prepared" state 

 magnified. 



have shot up thickly. These, as well as those 

 of the H. lanatus, are disliked by grazing 

 stock of all kinds ; hence they grow up and 

 ripen together, and although all of the latter 

 which have their chaff attached are easily 

 blown out in cleaning, yet if very ripe, and 

 should they be " hard thrashed," a consider- 

 able number will part with their husks, and 

 thus become a hurtful mixture among the 

 other. Seedsmen as well as seed-growers 

 may, however, be able to detect the exact 

 proportions of surreptitious mixture by exa- 

 mining these seeds with an ordinary pocket 

 microscope, which they should never go with- 

 out ; and that growers should at all times 

 have this mode of detection within their 

 power, they should invariably procure their 

 seeds unmixed, and microscopically examine 

 each parcel separately before mixing and sow- 

 ing them. 



