6i8 FARM ' SEEDS ' : GENERAL 



very inferior quality often closely resembling the genuine 

 ones. 



Occasionally seeds which are similar may be substituted for 

 each other either partially or completely, e.g., perennial rye-grass 

 for meadow fescue, or wavy hair-grass for yellow oat-grass, but 

 this kind of fraud can readily be detected without much trouble. 



There is, however, another form of deception which no ex- 

 amination of the seed alone will avoid, and that is the substitu- 

 tion of one variety of a species of plant for another. The 

 article supplied may be in a sense true to name and yet be 

 inferior so far as its usefulness is concerned. For example, 

 red clover seed is at present raised in various quarters of the 

 globe, and the strains from the different localities are not by 

 any means all equally suited to our own climate. South European 

 seed is more tender and liable to die off in autumn than seed 

 raised say in Suffolk. Both samples of such seed would un- 

 doubtedly be red clover, but the substitution of one for the 

 other would lead to serious results for the farmer. Not only 

 does this apply to red clover but to many other kinds of plants. 



Nearly all the plants of the farm and garden are species which 

 have undergone considerable modification and 'improvement' 

 at the hand of man ; few of them are like the wild plants from 

 which they were originally taken. We thus have a number of 

 varieties possessing characters which make them more or less 

 useful to us. Many of these have been raised to their present 

 high standard of excellence by the skill and care of industrious 

 men. The substitution of one of these specially raised strains of 

 seed for another of inferior quality is a similar form of deception 

 to that above mentioned. There are for instance a considerable 

 number of different varieties of turnips on the market ; some of 

 them are of excellent quality in every respect, others inferior. 

 It is quite impossible to distinguish them by any process of 

 examination of the seeds, and yet the matter is of the utmost 

 importance, as the substitution of one for another may frequently 



