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Fig. 10. — Small seed balls, each 
being a 
buckhorn 
seed to 1 which alfalfa seeds 
cling. 
i Natural 
size, i 
12 SEPARATING BUCKHORN FROM CLOVER AND ALFALFA SEEDS. 
drical vessel. Pack the seeds into such a vessel or into shallow trays 
having wire-cloth bottoms of No. 20 mesh, or finer. Set these recep 
tacles before a fan, in a current of warm air, in the open air and 
sunshine, or in a seed drier until the alfalfa seeds fall apart freely 
When moderately dry. screen them through sieves as mentioned in 
describing the dry sawdust method. If the seeds are made too dry 
the clover will be too easily detached from the buckhorn. The alfalfa 
seeds will pass through the 
sieves, but the buckhorn 
seeds will be found to have 
collected about themselves 
a small number of alfalfa 
seeds, thus forming small 
seed balls (fig. 10), and 
these seed balls will not 
pa — through the sieve. 
The loss of good seeds 
by this method obviously 
will depend on the num- 
ber of buckhorn seeds pres- 
ent, but the good seeds thus thrown out may be saved afterwards by 
one of the other methods if desired. This method is the simplest and, 
aside from the percentage of alfalfa seeds clinging to the buckhorn 
seeds, the cheapest to operate. Ordinarily this loss will be from ."i to 
10 per cent. 
METHOD OF SEPARATION NOT INJURIOUS TO CLOVER AND 
ALFALFA SEEDS. 
In order to be able to assure the readers of this paper that the red 
clover and alfalfa seeds cleaned by these method- are not injured, 
germination tests were made with both treated and untreated seed-. 
No difference in the average germinability could be discovered. 
Since the operations subsequent to the application of the sawdust, 
chaff, etc.. are identical with ordinary seed-cleaning processes, other 
impurities will he eliminated at the same time. 
Approved : 
James Wilson. 
Secretary *</' Agriculture. 
Washington, I). ('.. March is. 1908. 
[Circ. '.'] 
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