1906.] Red Clover Seed and its Impurities. 719 



latter policy can only be characterised as " penny wise and 

 pound foolish," as the expense of rent, labour and manure is 

 much the same, irrespective of the crop being good or other- 

 wise. 



In the purity examination of red clover seed a separation is 

 made under two headings — genuine seed and foreign material, 

 and the. latter is again divided into useful seeds weed seeds, 

 noxious weeds, and mechanical impurities, such as soil, sand, &c. 



In the illustration, showing the clover seeds and the impurities 

 commonly found in samples of clover, each seed is drawn to scale 

 and magnified six diameters. In genuine American seed we 

 invariably find a certain number of weed seeds, which, as 

 already indicated, help us to determine its origin. The follow- 

 ing are shown in the plate : — Rag weed {Ambrosia artemise- 

 folia), rib grass (Plantago major, var. Americana), witch grass 

 {Panicum capillare), and, in addition to these, the seeds common 

 to English or European samples, such as ordinary rib grass 

 (Pla?tlago lanceolatd), spurrey (Spergu/a arvensis), trefoil (Medi- 

 cago lupulina), carrot (Daucus Carota), cornflower (Centa?irea 

 Cyanus), nipplewort (Lapsaua communis), penny cress (T/i/aspi 

 arvense), geranium {Geranium dissectum), dodder (Cuscuta 

 trifolii). 



Of all the impurities found in red clover, dodder is the one 

 most to be dreaded. It is a parasitic leafless plant, which 

 derives all its sustenance from the clover, around the stem of 

 which it twines. The seed germinates in the soil in the usual 

 way, giving rise to a tiny leafless, thread-like shoot. At first it 

 seems as though the plant depended on the nourishment pro- 

 vided by the food in the soil, but should the young dodder 

 plant fail to come into contact with a living clover plant it soon 

 withers and dies. When the thread-like shoot touches a clover 

 stem it immediately begins to twine round it, at the same time 

 sending into the stem at the points of contact roots or suckers. 

 As the growth increases, the dodder encircles not only the 

 branches of the plant with which it first started into existence, 

 but also other plants, and thus the work of strangulation goes on. 

 The reddish-yellow colour of the thin, straggling, wiry stems is 

 sufficiently characteristic and distinctive to enable one to recog- 

 nise it readily. Red clover containing dodder should never be 



