134 HOW TO GROW GOOD CLOVER. 



into the wilder state. But we incline to think that 

 the agrarian burnet has got into agriculture by being 

 introduced with foreign seeds ; and as its introduction 

 seems to have been small at first, it attracted but 

 little notice ; for as the leaves both of the burnet and 

 sainfoin were pinnate, the difference that the botanist 

 would observe in the leaflets, i. e. the former being 

 serrate, and those of the latter having an entire 

 margin, would hardly attract the attention of the 

 farmer ; however, it soon became so serious a matter 

 that some crops of so-called saiufoin, in their second 

 or third year, presented as much as 90 percent, of 

 burnet, and as the latter grew taller than the sain- 

 foin, it effectually smothered it out, and in its place 

 supplied a sticky, non-succulent, and innutritious 

 herbage, that made farmers begin to inquire seriously 

 about the seed. 



Here, however, as the seeds, or rather the fruits, 

 of both plants were pretty much of the same colour, 

 and both wrinkled, samples of fully half burnet 

 passed muster in the seed-market ; and, though these 

 fruits are so different in shape and size, yet we were 

 astonished to find that, during the trial of an action 

 against a seedsman for supplying sainfoin seed con- 

 taining a large quantity of burnet when good sainfoin 

 seed was paid for, the judge, jury, and most of the 

 farmers present confessed their inability to distinguish 

 them ; it becomes, therefore, at this point, a duty to 

 describe the two. 



Pig. 32 a represents a 

 short wrinkled pea-pod, 

 broad at the back and thin 

 in front, as seen in the sec- 

 tion b. In the interior is a 



