SEED AND SEED SELECTION 35 



Seed bought at $7.80 per bushel showed as low as 61.2 

 per cent that was germinable, of which the actual cost 

 was $12.74 per bushel. None of the fifteen samples had 

 less than yy per cent of germinable seed. One pound 

 sample contained 21,728 noxious seeds, of which 18,144 

 were lamb's-quarter or pigweeds; the same pound also 

 had 3126 seeds of dodder. Another pound carried 6420 

 seeds of crab grass, and one had 3325 seeds of foxtail. 



The station authorities recommend that no alfalfa seed 

 be sown until carefully screened through a screen fine 

 enough to remove dodder seeds. Wire sieves or screens 

 with twenty meshes to the inch are found to serve the 

 purpose. 



ADULTERANTS DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED 



As a further and more thorough discussion of the fre- 

 quent adulterants. Prof. H. F. Roberts, botanist of the 

 Kansas experiment station, has kindly prepared, with 

 illustrations, for this volume the quoted statements which 

 follow here: 



"The immense and steadily increasing value of alfalfa 

 as a forage crop in the United States, and the high price 

 of the seed, make the securing of sound, pure seed a 

 matter of supreme importance to farmers, and render it 

 equally important for them to be able to recognize, by 

 sight, the presence in alfalfa seed of the adulterants 

 and seeds of certain weeds most commonly known to 

 occur. There is conclusive evidence that an amount of 

 adulteration and substitution is actually practiced with 

 alfalfa seed. It is usually charged that this is done 

 abroad, especially, as is alleged, in Germany. 



