662 FARM ' SEEDS : SPECIAL 



unreliable. Some of the best firms, in order to avoid even 

 the appearance of doubt which might attach to their samples, 

 will not supply mixed seeds unless specially required to do so, 

 and this is as it should be. 



The impurities met with in grass seeds are frequently much 

 the same as those present in clover samples. The particular 

 kinds and the amount depend upon the origin of the seed. A 

 large quantity is obtained by women and children, who carry 

 on hand-collection from wild grasses growing in meadows, lanes, 

 woods, and commons abroad. This method, coupled as it is 

 with packing in sacks often in damp weather, and other im- 

 perfect management, is productive of bad samples generally. 

 Often little discrimination is made in the species collected, or 

 their maturity, and worthless material and weeds thus find their 

 way to the market. 



Sometimes crops of ' seeds ' are harvested from temporary 

 leys. Where only two or three species of plants are grown 

 together, such as one or two grasses and a clover or two, it 

 is often easy to separate the difierent seeds from each other 

 on account of differences in their form and size. The impurities 

 present in samples obtained in this way are those usually met 

 with in red and white clover. 



Large quantities are also obtained from the cultivation of 

 grasses for the definite object of seed only. Usually they are 

 grown in drilled rows, and carefully tended and managed. Good 

 pure seeds can be obtained in this manner. Ten or fifteen 

 years ago samples of grass seeds were about as bad as they 

 could be, full of impurities of all kinds, and a great deal of fraud 

 was practised in mixing seeds of inferior kinds with the better 

 sorts which they resembled. Sometimes complete substitution 

 of good grasses by useless ones was carried on. Now, samples 

 are of much better quality, and the best seedsmen will guarantee 

 absolute purity, together with high germination capacity. It is, 

 however, very necessary for the farmer to become more generally 



