640 FARM ' SEEDS : SPECIAL 



Colour, Brightness and Smell. — All the varieties are a dirty 

 chocolate brown with a greyish tinge ; the surface is dull, and in 

 these two particulars they differ sufficiently to enable us to 

 distinguish them from the otherwise similar seeds of turnip and 

 swede. They possess no smell, and the taste is mild and oily. 

 The natural dull and grey tinge is suggestive of mouldiness to 

 the unaccustomed eye, but the want of musty smell and the 

 absence of the hyphse of fungi, when examined with the microscope, 

 enable us to decide in doubtful cases. Seeds which are mouldy 

 and grey are often oiled to brighten them a little, and treated 

 with charcoal powder to get rid of the musty smell ; in cases 

 where the seed looks bright, the test for oil should be made. 



Purity. — There is rarely any fault to find with samples in 

 respect of this point. The chief impurities are dirt and pieces of 

 the walls of the fruits. Samples, however, are not unfrequent in 

 which the screening off of shrivelled and imperfect seed might 

 have been carried further with advantage. The purity of good 

 samples of all the varieties should be 98 per cent. 



Germination Capacity. — Samples above 90 per cent, are 

 usually good ; if lower than this they are either poorly developed, 

 old, or have been mixed with dead seeds. 



Weight. — The size of the seeds of the different varieties is so 

 irregular that no satisfactory standard weight can be given. The 

 weight of 1000 seeds has been found to vary between 2 '60 and 

 6'i gr., a good average one being about 3-5 gr. Bushel-weight, 

 50-56 lbs. 



Swede Turnip {B. Rutabaga D.C.). — A variety of this plant 

 is known as Colza or winter-rape, the seeds of which differ in no 

 way from those of the swede turnip. 



Form and Size. — They are similar to the seeds of cabbage in 

 these particulars, an uniform diameter of about 2 mm. to 2 '2 mm. 

 being a desirable one. The surface of the seed appears covered 

 with irregular meshes between which minute dots are seen. 



Colour, Brightness and Smell. — The colour of the seeds 



