Miscellaneous. 



[April 1908. 



to describe briefly the more important 

 points. In examining a sample of seed 

 one's attention is directed to 



I. The Genuineness. 



By this is meant that the seed is 

 really what it is described as being. 

 A farmer who orders meadow fescue and 

 is supplied with the much cheaper peren- 

 nial rye, is defrauded. The two seeds 

 are very similar in appearance, and lend 

 themselves to deception. A farmer 

 who orders turnip seed and receives the 

 cheaper rape, loses money in the pur- 

 chase, and further gets a crop of green 

 tops instead of fleshly roots. Charlock, 

 the yellow mustard-like pest in potato, 

 corn, and other fields, has a seed very 

 like turnip or rape, and often, apart 

 from taste, needs the microscope for 

 identification. At one time charlock was 

 largely mixed with turnip or rape, and 

 often, to hide its presence in the seed, 

 was killed before mixing, to prevent its 

 appearance in the field, on the principle, 

 as was well stated, that " dead men tell 

 no tales." Owing to the tendency of 

 turnips and swede to bolt, the general 

 similarity in appearance of the seeds of 

 turnip, swede, rape, and charlock 

 (all members of the genus Brassica), and 

 to the consequent danger of fraud, cases 

 occur every year, in my own experince, 

 in which the Seed-testing Station is 

 called in to decide as between buyer and 

 seller. The clovers at one time were far 

 from being genuine. Nobbe quotes a 

 letter from a Continental firm offering 

 to a seedsman quartz stones so agreeing 

 in size and colour with red clover or 

 white clover that the ordinary farmer 

 could not distinguish them. English red 

 clover has a high value in the trade, but 

 every season is not favourable to the 

 general maturing of its seeds. The 

 supply falls short of the demand, and 

 other less hardy red clovers are liable to 

 be substituted. In such cases the 

 genuineness is generally ascertainable by 

 examination of the seed impurities. 



Several seeds in falsely called English 

 red clover are foreign, and never occur 

 in England. By the examination of such 

 impurities Stebler of Zurich has, during 

 the past twenty years, collected most 

 valuable information as to the country 

 of origin of seeds, and his results are 

 now in course of publication. Advant- 

 age of the knowledge of this means of 

 identification is sometimes taken by the 

 grower. Thus Russian flax seed, which 

 has a reputation for strong growth, has 

 a common impurity called "false flax" 

 (Camelina sativa). The grower of flax 

 in another country, knowing this, some- 

 times introduces a little false flax seed 

 into his flax seed to give the impression 



that the seed is genuine Russian-grown. 

 The meadow grasses (Poa sp.) differ 

 greatly in value. The seeds of the differ- 

 ent species possess definite botanical 

 characters, but these characters can be 

 so far removed by cleaning machinery 

 that the cheaper, more easily obtained 

 seed can be substituted for the dearer, 

 better kind. The ordinary buyer could 

 not be expected to know the difference. 

 Must he then continue to be, because 

 of his unavoidable ignorance, tha pos- 

 sible victim of fraud ? 



2. Purity. 



By practical purity is meant that the 

 seed is not only true to name, but that 

 it contains nothing else in measurable 

 quantity. The two chief sources of im- 

 purity are inert matter, such as stone, 

 particles of soil, broken seeds, stalks, 

 chaff— all dead weight— and the seeds of 

 other plants, chiefly weeds. Great im- 

 provement has taken place in this branch 

 of the seed trade. The better houses 

 have often elaborate machinery by which 

 the impurities are removed. Unfortun- 

 ately, however, these very impurities 

 find a ready market, and the supply 

 within the trade is not equal to the 

 demand ! 



Many of the weed seeds are highly 

 objectionable or injurious. The dodder 

 is very generally pr esent in some clovers, 

 and may do a great deal of harm as a 

 parasitic pest. The dodder seed is in 

 size and colour so like a particle of soil 

 as to be indistinguishable to the farmer. 

 Fortunately for Ireland, the dodder does 

 not thrive well, and there are few cases on 

 record- of injury to crops caused by it. 

 I had one case before me in 1900 of the 

 destruction of a flax field by the flax 

 dodder, and the correspondent men- 

 tioned cases of great damage in some 

 fields in earlier years. 



In England the dodder has, I under- 

 stand, done much harm locally, from 

 year to year, but does not often ripen 

 its seeds. In some of the Continental 

 and American clovers, however, ripe 

 dodder seeds are plentiful. In England 

 an ounce of dodder in a ton of clover is 

 the limit of impurity considered permis- 

 sible. On the Continent the limit varies 

 — from absolute freedom to from five to 

 ten dodder seeds in one kilogramme of 

 clover. Most foreign clovers contain 

 dodder, and may require several sievings 

 before becoming free from it. At the 

 recent International Conference in Ham- 

 burg it was decided to invite from all 

 over the Woild information as to the 

 prevalence of dodder in the flora, etc. of 

 each country. 



