SELECTION OF SEED. 219 



divided, the more likely they are to be acted upon by the 

 air and the rain, and the greater the range of feeding 

 ground becomes; and the cleaner the land is kept of 

 weeds, which we neither eat nor sell, the more food there 

 is for the growth and increase of the Crop that we culti- 

 vate for one or other of those purposes. All these points 

 ought to be attended to as carefully in the preparation for 

 Italian ryegrass as for any other of our crops, and no 

 money is better laid out on a farm than that expended in 

 the judicious preparation of the land and selection of the 

 seed for a crop. 



This latter point, the selection of the seed, to which 

 we have frequently alluded in reference to preceding 

 crops, has a peculiar bearing in the present case, as 

 probably not one of the seeds we use in our ordinary 

 crops is subject to the same amount of adulteration that 

 is met with in this and the common perennial ryegrass. 

 This, though well known to both sellers and buyers, 

 seedsmen and farmers, and of course reprehended by both, 

 is, however, practically supported by the latter, who too 

 often look to the quantity rather than to the quality of the 

 seed, and fancy that because it is offered them at a low 

 price it must consequently be cheap. It is true that by 

 increasing the quantity of seed allotted to the acre they 

 increase their chance of getting a plant ; but it should be 

 recollected that they increase their crop of weeds at the 

 same time ; and it does not require much observation nor 

 much time to show that bad seed is dear at any price 

 that it can be purchased for. In a recent number of the 

 Agricultural Gazette 1 a valuable article one of a series 

 on the adulteration of seeds appeared, treating specially 

 of the adulteration of ryegrass seed both the Perennial 

 and the Italian which gives us the detailed results of 

 examination of several marked samples of both species. 



1 Agri. Gaz., 1860, p. 414. 



