TAKING OF SAMPLES', GERMINATION TESTS. 15 



To-day the seed is cleaned with powerful machinery, so that hun- 

 dreds of bushels of "fancy" can be turned out in a day. The rough 

 seed is first run onto a cylinder which is armed with steel teeth and 

 which revolves in a jacket of heavy wire mesh. The grass is rubbed 

 between the mesh and the cylinder and the seed rubbed out. It is 

 then sifted and run through a bran polisher, or some similar machine, 

 to loosen the wool, after which it is finally cleaned through one of the 

 modern seed -cleaning machines, which blows out the wool, dust, and 

 light seed, leaving the u fancy " grade of any desired weight per bushel. 

 The seed demanded by the export trade must weigh at least 22 pounds 

 to the measured bushel. 



EFFECT OF CURING ON THE VITALITY OF THE SEED. 



During the past summer a careful study was made of the tempera- 

 tures in the piles of curing bluegrass seed. A stay of about four weeks 

 in the bluegrass region of Kentucky during the harvesting season, 

 with daily visits to the principal curing grounds, made it possible to 

 collect a series of samples taken under known conditions as to the time 

 of harvesting, length of time the seed had lain in ricks without turn- 

 ing, and temperature of the seed when the sample was taken. These 

 samples were dried as soon as drawn and sent to the seed laboratory, 

 where they were cleaned by hand and the cleaned seed tested for ger- 

 mination. The conditions from the time the samples were drawn to 

 the completion of the germination test were the same for all samples. 

 The results of the germination tests are shown in the tables following. 



About 70 samples of seed were collected, part of them being average 

 samples taken from large lots of seed that were being cured under 

 the ordinary conditions, but at different stages during the process, 

 while others were taken to ascertain the actual time and temperature 

 of fermentation. In order to do this a quantity of seed was repeatedly 

 placed in a rick on the ground as soon as brought in from the strippers 

 and not stirred for several days. Thermometer a bulbs were placed in 

 the piles when the seed was put on the ground, and samples were taken 

 at frequent intervals from these piles, the temperature of the mass 

 being determined at the same time. 



GERMINATION TESTS. 



The following tables show the results of the germination tests of 

 the samples mentioned above. 



a The temperatures of the piles of fermenting seed were taken with electrical ther- 

 mometers of the pattern used in the Bureau of Soils and described in Bulletin No. 15, 

 Division of Soils, U. S. Department of Agriculture. These instruments allowed the 

 readings to be made as often as desired without removing the bulbs or in any way 

 disturbing the temperature. 



