SELECTION OF SEED 263 



the seed bed prepared with the disk and smoothing harrows. 

 If any of these grain crops follow corn wliich has been kept 

 clean of weeds, a good seed bed can be prepared by disking 

 two or three times and then harrowing. The corn rows 

 should be leveled as much as possible in preparing the land. 

 If the ground is to be plowed, deep plowing when the soil 

 breaks up readily is desirable. Plowing when the soil is in 

 proper condition reduces the labor necessary to obtain a 

 good seed bed ; fall plowing is usually preferable in the North. 

 Deep plowing increases the water-holding capacity of the 

 soil, and also increases the quantity of available plant food 

 by making the soil more easily penetrable by the roots. 



335. Selection of the Seed. The sowing of good seed 

 is fully as important in forming a meadow as in the planting 

 of any of the grain crops. The seed should be true to name, 

 of strong germination, and free from noxious weed seeds. 

 The seeds of some of the inferior grasses closely resemble 

 those of some of the important ones; for example, Canada 

 blue grass seed is very similar to that of Kentucky blue grass, 

 but Canada blue grass is of much less value. When there 

 is any doubt about the purity of the seed, a sample should 

 be submitted to the nearest seed laboratory for examination. 

 The experiment stations usually make examinations of this 

 kind free of charge. With a simple hand lens and samples 

 of good seed, or good illustrations of them such as are easily 

 obtainable, examinations for purity may readily be made 

 in school or at home . Freedom from weed seeds is equally 

 as important as freedom from undesirable mixtures, as many 

 of the worst weeds are often introduced in grass and clover 

 seed. Avoid them by not planting them. 



336. Germination Test. As the germination of grass 

 seed is often low, it is well to make a germination test of the 



^Farmers' Bulletin 428, "Testing Farm Seeds in the Home and in the Rural 

 School," gives directions for testing ail the more important forage crop and grain 

 seeds, with illustrations of these seeds and the more common impurities which 

 are found in them. Farmers' Bulletin 382, "The Adulteration of Forage-Plant 

 Seeds," is also a valuable aid to the making of purity testa. 



