Adulteration of Seeds 



567 



14. It is diiTereut with the selling of old seed. The 

 seeds produced in different years, like different 

 vintages, vary in their quality and in their power of 

 retaining their vitality. It thus sometimes happens 

 that two years' old seed is better than one year's old. 

 There is thus a special difficulty in dealing with it ; 

 but it is clear that the public are entitled to get what 

 they pay for ; and if it is necessary to secure this that 

 the dealer sh'ould test the quality of his seeds each 

 year, it is his duty to do so. 



15. It seems a right and proper thing that Govern- 

 ment should bestow some pains in protecting the very 

 large numbers of ignorant and uneducated people who 

 have to purchase seeds. In Pmssia, Sachverstandi- 

 gen, or,^as we should call them, experts, are appointed 

 by Government, whose duty it is, for a certain fee, to 

 test the quality of the seeds of such merchants who 



apply to them, and to publish the results ; and in some 

 districts (Saxony and Wurtemberg, for example) there 

 are officials paid by the Government or district, whose 

 business it is to look after the culture of fruit trees and 

 to give gratuitous advice to all who apply to them 

 for it. 



16. But, independently of the action of Government, 

 your committee are disposed to think that the Council 

 of the Royal Horticultural Society might itself do 

 much to encourage the sale of good seeds, if not to 

 prevent the sale of bad. How it can most effectually 

 exert its influence for this pui-pose, is a question on 

 which the Council might probably obtain useful sug- 

 gestions from the respectable members of the seed 

 trade ; and your committee recommend that a number 

 of them be invited to meet the Council and give their 

 views as to the best steps to be taken to remedy the evil. 



EFFECTS OF MANURE ON HERBAGE. 



THE following is the substance of an interesting 

 Report drawn up by Dr Voelcker, and made by 

 the Chemical Sub-Committee to the Scientific Com- 

 mittee of the Royal Horticultural Society, on the 

 effects of different Manures on Herbage. 



Dr Gilbert, at a previous meeting, had referred to 

 some very striking experiments conducted for many 

 years at Rothamstead Park by Mr Lawes and himself 

 on permanent pasture, which has been under grass 

 probably for centuries. 



Under ordinary management this herbage yielded 

 about fifty species of graminaceous, leguminous, and 

 other plants usually found in permanent meadows. 



The number of species of plants was but little 

 changed on those experimental plats in the park to 

 which a complex but purely mineral manure was 

 applied, consisting of salts of potash, soda, magnesia, 

 and sulphate and phosphate of lime. 



On the other hand, salts of ammonia, nitrate of 

 soda, applied by themselves, or the addition of nitro- 

 genous manures to mineral fertilizing matters, greatly 

 diminished the number of species in the herbage. 



According to the particular kind of nitrogenous 

 manure used, and the quantity and combination with 

 other fertilizing matters in which nitrogenous manures 

 were employed, the diminution in the number of 

 species varied, but in all cases it was strikingly ap- 

 parent, and in some instances amounted to about one- 

 half of the species in the herbage from the unmanured 

 part of the park, or those parts dressed with purely 

 mineral manures. 



Attention was further directed to the fact, that not 

 only the weight of the produce reaped per acre was 

 much influenced by the description of the manures 

 which were put on the different experimental plats, 

 but that likewise the relative proportions of gramina- 



ceous and of leguminous and miscellaneous plants in 

 the produce were found to vary considerably with the 

 manures employed. 



Thus, to cite only a few examples, the weight of the 

 graminaceous plants in the produce from the un- 

 manured plats, and those dressed with purely mineral 

 manures, in round numbers amounted to about 60 per 

 cent, of the whole produce. Dressed with salts of 

 ammonia or nitrate of soda, and other purely nitrogen- 

 ous manures, the herbage yielded from 70 to 80 per 

 cent, of the whole weight of produce in graminaceous 

 plants, and in some instances in which an abundance 

 of both nitrogenous and mineral manures were em- 

 ployed together, the weight of the graminaceous plants 

 in the whole produce amounted to nearly 95 per cent. 



The effect of nitrogenous manures in encouraging 

 the growth of true grasses, and raising the weight of 

 graminaceous produce and the corresponding diminu- 

 tion of the weight of the leguminous and miscellaneous 

 plants in the produce, was strikingly exemplified in 

 these experiments. 



On the other hand, it was found that purely mineral 

 manures, such as salts of potash and phosphate of 

 lime, favoured materially the growth of the clover 

 tribes, and gi-eatly increased the percentage by weight 

 of the leguminous plants in the whole produce of the 

 permanent pasture. 



At a subsequent committee meeting it was agreed 

 to call together the Chemical Sub-Committee, who, 

 regarding the co-operation of botanists and others in- 

 terested in vegetable physiology, were joined by Dr 

 Masters, Dr Hogg, Mr Murray, Major Trevor Clarke, 

 and Mr Miers. 



The Sub-Committee fully discussed the manner in 

 which manuring experiments on graminaceous and 

 other plants occurring in pastures might with ad- 



