54 THE FORAGE AND FIBER CROPS IN AMERICA 



itself on account of the loose arrangement of the spikelets 

 The spikelets are one-flowered. The flowering 

 glume is hyaline, toothed, awnless, much shorter 

 than the outer glumes; the palea is hyaline and 

 quite narrow?*' The outer glumes are truncate, 

 with stiff hairs on the keel which extends into a 

 point or short awn less than half the length of 

 the glume. 



51. Seed. The naked seed or caryopsis is ovoid, 

 one-fifteenth to one-twelfth of an inch in diameter, 

 usually enclosed in the flowering glume and palea 

 but free from them; hence when closely threshed 

 or re-cleaned, many naked seeds occur. Timothy 

 seed is not ordinarily subject to much adulteration. 

 The most common foreign grass seeds are redtop, 

 fowl meadow, and the foxtails. Fresh, well- 

 ripened seed has a silvery-white appearance, which 

 may, however, be discolored if the seed is wet 

 during the harvest season. Timothy seed may oc 

 cur on the market in three sizes, as 

 follows: (i) About 600,000 to the 

 pound; (2) 1,200,000 to the pound; 

 and (3) 2,000,000 to the pound. 



.The relative value of these grades 

 A head of tim- has not been determined, although the Sp}kelet rf tfm> 

 othy in tho result of two years' trial at the Cor- othy. En- 



nell Station was slightly in favor of fou > 



the large seed, both when the same 



weight and when the same number of seeds were sown per acre. 

 At the Utah Station no material difference in yield was found 

 between seeds of high and low specific gravity. The standard 

 of germination is 90 per cent, and the purity should not be less 

 than 98 per cent. 

 Timothy is cut for seed with the self-binding harvester and 



