TIMOTHY. 47 
The legal weight per bushel is forty-eight pounds. 
The great bulk of the Timothy seed of commerce is clean when 
compared with the seeds of other grasses and clovers. The prin- 
cipal weed seeds to be guarded against when purchasing it are Ox- 
eye Daisy, False Flax, Mayweed, Sheep Soriel, Bladder Campion, 
Perennial Sow Thistle, Canada Thistle, Chickweed and Cinquefoil. 
Timothy, like many other species of grasses, is attacked by 
Ergot (Claviceps). Ergot grains (sclerotia) vary in size and form 
according to the species of grain or grass on which they develop. 
The solid bodies are dark purple and may readily be detected 
protruding from the seedcoat in the spike. Meadows infested with 
Ergot should not be taken for seed. 
Mow your hay in the proper season and be cautious that you do not mow it too late. Cut before 
the seed is ripe—Cato, 95-46 B.C. 
Here may’st thou range the goodly, pleasant field, 
And search out simples to procure thy heal, 
What sundry virtues, sundry herbs do yield, 
"Gainst grief which may thy sheep or thee assail. 
—Michael Drayton, Eclogue VII., 1563-1631. 
When the grass is cut it should be turned toward the sun, and must never be stacked until it is 
quite dry. If this last precaution is not carefully taken, a kind of vapour will be seen arising from 
the rick in the morning, and as soon as the sun is up it will ignite to a certainty, and so be consumed. 
—Pliny, Natural History, 23-79. 
If meadow be forward, be mowing of some, 
But mow as the makers may well overcome. 
Take heed to the weather, the wind and the sky, 
If danger approacheth, then cock apace, cry. 
—Thomas Tusser, Five Hundreth Pointes of Husbandrie, 1557. 
But saltish ground, and what is usually called sour—that is unproductive of corn crops; it is 
not rendered kindly by ploughing, nor does it preserve to grapes their natural good qualities, nor to 
apples their character and name—will give you the following indication. Take down from the smoky 
roofs baskets of close woven twigs and the strainers of your wine-press. Into these let some of that 
faulty mould and sweet water from the spring be pressed brimful; you will find that all the water will 
strain out, and big drops pass through the twigs. But the unmistakeable taste will prove your test 
and the bitterness will, by the sensation it produces, twist awry the tasters’ faces, expressive of their 
pain.—Virgil, Georgics, 37 B.C. 
