Testing Farm Seeds. 345- 



EASE OP MAKING PRACTICAL TESTS. 



Seed tests sufficiently accurate to answer all practical purposes can. 

 be made by a beginner with a little practice. Certain time-consuming- 

 and exacting features of detail in making official tests at Washington or 

 at an experiment station are often unnecessary in making tests for the- 

 facts of most practical importance. 



By providing the apparatus and following the directions for making- 

 tests suggested in the following pages and by using the illustrations. 

 in comparing seeds of different kinds one can soon become sufficiently 

 expert to feel reasonable confidence in his ability to avoid errors of im- 

 portance. 



The younger members of the home circle should find such work 

 comparatively easy to accomplish and interesting as well. The testing of 

 locally grown seed would be assisted by the possession of a correctly 

 named set of the seeds of crops and of weeds prevailing in the vicinity. 



When the work is done in the school, samples of seed of local interest 

 and obtainable at the homes of the pupils may be used. This tends to- 

 impress the pupils (and their parents as well) with the immediate utility 

 of the work. If suitable seed is not obtainable locally, samples represent- 

 ing different grades can be obtained from dealers. The boys can make- 

 the balance here described. Several balances may be made and their 

 efficiency compared. The successful making of such apparatus has a 

 distinct educational value of its own. One pupil may be authorized to 

 procure the magnifiers rec[uired ; another may be delegated to provide one 

 or more plate germinators or to make the corn-germinating box. Germina- 

 tion tests made in cloth, paper, sand and soil may be compared, showing- 

 the effect of surrounding conditions. Such actual practice makes the 

 pupil do and think and fits him to master corresponding but more com- 

 plex problems later. 



APPARATUS USED IN MAKING TESTS. 



The Need of Apparatus. — Only such apparatus is needed in making- 

 practical seed tests as enables one to use a weighed quantity of seed from 

 the sample, to separate the pure seed from the foreign seeds and other im- 

 purities, to distinguish the character of the foreign seeds, and to make the 

 germination test. 



It is important to use a weighed quantity of seed in the test, because 

 only in this way can one determine the relative quantity or percentage 

 of pure seed as compared wilh the quantity of the impurities. This re- 

 quires a balance sufficiently sensitive to be moved by a small weight, such 

 as that of a few clover seeds. This sensitiveness is necessary, because 



