16 
Adulteration of Seeds. 
samples may, however, be easily detected by comparison with 
samples known to be genuine, and by a comparative trial ot 
growth. 
In some districts, where the farmers usually sow mixed clover 
and grasses, red clover is adulterated to some extent with the 
cheaper article trefoil, the farmer thus paying 100 per cent, more 
for the latter than he ought to be charged. White clover under- 
goes the admixture with old seed which has been ])ut through a 
rubbing and bleaching process by exposure to the fumes of burn- 
ing sulphur. When very dear it is dashed with a proportion of 
7'ed mckliiu/, if the latter happens to be the cheaper article of the 
two. 
But the most palpable fraud of the last few years has been the 
attempt to colour white clover so as to make it resemble alsihe. 
Samples thus treated may be detected by the green stain which 
they leave behind them when wetted and rubbed in the hand. 
Old trefoil undergoes the sulphui'ous bleaching and brushing 
process to a great extent. 
Old trifolixim is treated in the same manner. 
But in all these cases the purchaser need only compare the 
suspicious article with a really fine genuine sample of new seed, 
and he will have no difficulty in coming to a satisfactory decision 
as to its merits. 
The actual modus operandi in "doctoring" is, I must confess, 
unknown to me, and were it otherwise I should not enter into 
details which could afford no useful information, and might pos- 
sibly lead to mischief. The power of detecting a fraud is quite 
independent of the knowledge of the means and manipulations by 
which it is effected. 
Foreif/n clover is especially subject to the attack of parasitic 
weeds, such as Orohanche elatior (tall broom-rape), Orohanche 
minor (smaller broom-rape), and Cuscuta trifolii (dodder). The 
broom-rape attaches itself as a parasite to the roots of clover 
when growing, and as the seeds are very small and numerous it 
is difficult to exclude them from the sample, and it is thus the 
mischief becomes perpetuated. But as the upright leafless stem 
of this plant is tolerably conspicuous, it may be destroyed by 
pulling so as to separate the bulbous base of the parasite from 
the root of the clover. Hoeing is in this case useless, since the 
plant is attached to the very roots of the clover. 
Where dodder abounds it is fatal to the growth of clover and 
flax; therefore a knowledge of its characteristics is of the utmost 
importance to the agriculturist. Dr. Lindley (see Morton's 
' Cyclop;rdia of Agriculture') describes the dodder as a genus of 
leafless vegetable parasites, maintaining its existence by twining 
