EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 271 



contain not over a definite amount (to be considered below) of foreign 

 matter and ''pure seed" wliich does not contain over a very low max- 

 imum of foreign matter. Labeling as "pure," seed that comes in either of 

 the other classes should be a violation of the law. 



It should be forbidden to label or offer for sale as "pure seed" any 

 seed containing over one half of one per cent of other kinds of seed 

 or over one per cent of inert matter. 



The second class should include seed containing not over five per cent 

 inert matter and not over two per cent of any one kind of weed seed 

 or five per cent in total of weed seeds or over ten per cent total of other 

 agricultural seeds. 



Ohaffy grasses such as timothy, orchard grass, blue grass, etc., by 

 repeated handling lose some of the grains out of the chaff so that an 

 analysis might show a larger amount of chaff than allowed under these 

 provisions, without in reality reducing the amount of seeds actually 

 present. For this reason, such chaffy grasses, i. e. all members of 

 the family Gramineae (or Poaceae) whose grains are ordinarily in- 

 cluded in the chaff in the form in which they are offered for sale, should 

 be allowed to contain ten per cent of inert matter or perhaps fifteen 

 per cent, although the latter would be rather high. 



Seeds of this class should be provided Avith a tag or label stating 



that "This seed contains inert matter not exceeding per cent 



and weed seed not exceeding per cent." The maximum per 



cent written on the tag or label should not exceed the limits given 

 above. In place of the word "weed" the name of the contaminating 

 seeds may be inserted, with or without the individual amounts but 

 with the total amount given in any case. If other agricultural seeds 

 be present in more than ten per cent, the lot should be considered as a 

 mixture and labeled as such with the proportions of the ingredients. 

 A variation of over five per cent in either direction from the formula 

 given should be considered a violation of the law. 



The third class of seeds whose sale should be forbidden in all cases 

 should include: (1) all seed in which occur any seeds of dodder 

 {Cuscuta of any species), Canada thistle {Cirsium arvense or Carduus 

 arvensis), Quack grass {Agropyron repcns) and possibly Orange Hawk- 

 weed (Hieracium aurmitiacum) . To determine this, any one of these 

 seeds should be considered as present if it is found in two different 

 standard sized lots out of the same sample, these standard sized lots 

 being of the sizes used by the Seed Laboratory of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture in its analyses. As examples, it may be 

 stated that five grams is the standard size for analyses for red clover 

 and alfalfa, one gram for the smaller grass seeds, etc. (2) All seed 

 containing over five per cent of inert matter. (3) All seed containing 

 over two per cent of any one kind of weed not enumerated Jvbove (1) 

 or over five per cent in total (and in that case, the seed must be labeled 

 as provided for class two) or over ten per cent of other agricultural seed 

 except as provided for as mixtures of seed. 



In the above provisions, the percentage should always be calculated 

 by weight not by number as the latter varies with every lot of seed. 



Inert matter should be defined as all non-living matter not a part of 

 the living seeds, such as loose chaff, straw, pieces of stems, leaves, 

 flowers, sand, dirt, pieces of stone, etc., as well as all broken or insect- 



