258  Annual  Report  of  the  Consulting  Botanist  for  1882. 
doubt  be,  under  exceptional  harvesting  conditions,  lower  than 
the  percentage  fixed,  without  any  blame  being  due  to  the  seeds- 
man ; but  the  farmer  who  has  to  use  the  seed  should  be  made 
aware  of  this,  for  if  it  does  not  affect  the  price  per  pound  he 
has  to  pay,  it  must  affect  the  quantity  he  sows  when  he  has 
decided  what  proportion  the  different  grasses  shall  hold  in  his 
mixture.  The  best  seeds  bought  at  a fair  price  should  be 
better  than  the  recommended  standards.  As  a matter  of  fact, 
during  the  past  year,  only  a very  few  samples  of  those  seeds, 
for  which  a standard  of  90  per  cent,  germinating  power  was 
recommended,  fell  below  that  standard.  These  seeds  include 
cereals,  green  crops,  clovers,  and  Timothy  grass.  One  sample 
of  barley,  which  looked  well,  failed  to  germinate  more  than 
14  per  cent.,  and  on  dissection  I found  that  the  embryos  were 
dead.  No  doubt  the  seed,  originally  good,  had  been  kept 
so  long  that  the  germinating  power  had  been  almost  entirely 
destroyed.  The  clovers  considerably  surpassed  the  standard, 
with  the  exception  of  one  parcel  of  alsike,  which  gave  only 
48  per  cent,  of  germinating  grains. 
Only  two  samples  of  fox-tail  were  better  than  20  per  cent,  of 
germinating  grains,  the  moderate  standard  recommended  for 
this  grass.  One  sample,  looking  well  to  the  eye,  had  only  eight 
seeds  capable  of  germinating  in  the  100.  This  grass  is  almost 
always  collected  before  it  is  ripe.  The  seed  grower  thus  secures 
a bulkier  crop,  for  the  seeds  of  fox-tail  easily  separate  from  the 
stalk  as  they  ripen,  and  are  lost  to  the  collector.  The  purchaser 
also  gets  the  white  silvery  colour  in  the  unripe  seeds,  which 
is  so  much  desired.  But  in  getting  the  desired  colour,  he 
gets  chiefly  chaff.  It  would  be  infinitely  better  if  a darker  and 
heavier  seed  were  selected,  for  this  would  be  found  to  germinate 
80  or  90  per  cent.,  or  even  more. 
The  two  large-seeded  fescues,  meadow  fescue  and  tall  fescue, 
I have  found  to  be  generally  adulterated  with  rye-grass ; yet 
three  samples  of  tall  fescue,  and  one  of  meadow  fescue,  I found 
entirely  free  from  these  seeds.  The  proportion  of  rye-grass  seed 
varied  from  10  to  50  per  cent.  One  sample  offered  as  meadow 
fescue  contained  scarcely  a single  seed  of  that  grass,  but  was 
composed  mainly  of  rye-grass,  with  some  seeds  of  cocksfoot, 
crested  dogs-tail,  and  Yorkshire-fog.  The  presence  of  so  large 
a proportion  of  rye-grass  is  a very  serious  defect  in  the  great 
majority  of  samples  of  meadow  fescue.  And  the  price  paid  for 
the  adulterated  seed  should  be  taken  into  account.  The  price 
quoted  for  rye-grass  in  seedsmen’s  catalogues  of  this  season  is 
bd.  or  Gd.  per  lb.,  and  for  either  of  the  fescues  Is.  Ad.  or  Is.  Gd. 
In  a field  of  ten  acres  laid  down  with  the  mixture  recommended 
