Adulteration of Seeds. 
27 
land, possess inferior machines for cleaning-, and sometimes have? 
the credit of purposely mixing- all kinds of rubbish with the seed. 
The dodder in our flax and clover is an instance of foreign intro- 
duction. 
Mr. Euckman, in his Essay on Agricultural Weeds (' Journal,' 
vol. xvi. p. oTG), speaks of a field sown w ith foreign flax-seed 
which came up full of black mustard, which, besides the imme- 
diate injury to the crop, so infested the soil that after an interval 
of six years it still existed as a troublesome weed in tliat and the 
neighbouring fields. But as mustard is easily recognised from 
flax and may rcadilv be separated from it in the cleaning, this evil 
was in jiart due to the carelessness of the farmer. 
The disgraceful state in which much foreign seed is sent out 
is shown by Mr. Euckman in the ' Agricultural Gazette ' of 
August 28th, 1858. 
Eight samples of foreign seed, sent for examination (of which 
5 were clover, by no means over-clean ; 2 of Italian rye-grass, 
not only verv light but containing a large quantity of mischievous 
weeds; and 1 turnip, the genuineness of which it is difficult to 
ascertain, as seeds of charlock, rape, &c., are difficult to detect), 
gave the following results : — 
Copy of Label. 
Weight 
in grains 
of 2 oz. by 
measure. 
Estimated 
weeds in an 
Imperial 
pint. 
Remarljs. 
1 Red clover (foreign) 
2 Ked clover (foreign) 
.3 White Dutch clover (foreign) 
4 White Dutch clover (Silesian) 
.5 White Dutch (French) .. .. 
6 Imported Italian rye-grass 
7 Imported Italian rye-grass 
8 Skirving's improved purple-top \^ 
swede j 
8,800 
3, SCO 
1G,UU0 
28,800 
24,000 
1,440 
9G0 
Plantain, &c., a good seed- 
All plantain, a good seed. 
Polygonaceffi, plantain, &c. 
( Poly gonacea;, plantain ,&c., 
■weight made up by grains 
I of silex. 
PolygonaceoB, plantain, &c., 
■weight made up by grains 
I of silex. 
Ranunculus, plantain, lop. 
Ranunculus, plantain, lop. 
'Only a small proportion 
floated on -water. 
The ill effect of sowing foul seed is also shown by Buck- 
man in an article in the ' Agricultural Gazette' of October 15th, 
1859. He here compares the w^eeds growing- in neighbouring 
fields on the College farm, all sov/n with clover and rye-grass, 
and all farmed in the same manner. Of 64 species of weeds he 
only found o-t common to the three fields, and but few plants the 
seeds of which are not to be found in clover and rye-grass. He 
deduces from this that the seed w as grown in different localities, 
being bought of different seedsmen, and that the farmer sows 
