Alfalfa. 
13 
nothing about the more extreme statement “that they are scarcely 
worth sowing,” is altogether a mistake. 
The screenings are composed of the small, immature and shrunk- 
en seeds. These seed are nearly all dark brown or green and shriv- 
eled—probably due to two causes; first because they were harvested 
while still very immature and second because they are infested with 
molds, at least molds develop readily during the sprouting experi¬ 
ments and many of the seed rot, but as the table shows such seed ger¬ 
minate freely even when two and three years old. Two years old 
screenings show a germinating power of 38.0 and 55.5 per cent, respec¬ 
tively, while a sample of three years old screenings shows a germina¬ 
tion equal to 79.0 per cent. The variation in the quality of the 
screenings from year to year is shown by the varying number of seeds 
to the pound, which in the screenings of some years is smaller than 
that for seed sold as prime seed in other years. 
The preceding table shows that a large percentage of the screen¬ 
ings rotted and that the percentage of seeds which rotted did not de¬ 
pend upon the age of the screenings but upon the samples themselves 
or the degree m which the samples were infested with the cause of the 
rot. It is strikingly evident from the table that none of the clean, 
hand-picked seed No. 1 rotted and only a few of any samples of prime 
seed, while as high as 59 and 66 per cent of the second and third 
quality screenings rotted. This rotting is most probably due to the 
fact that these seed were already infested by the bacteria and other 
organisms causing it before they were threshed. The samples of 
prime seeds and of screenings will not serve for the purpose of com¬ 
parison from this point of view, because they are from different sour¬ 
ces with possibly two exceptions. 
I have observed, particularly in my last experiments, that when the 
seed rot, the screenings of samples 10 and 11 for instance, they appear 
to be glued together in bunches of three and four seeds unless they 
have been very carefully distributed and that any sprout, however 
vigorous and bright, is attacked and distroyed if it comes in contact 
with such a mass. The colorless mucilagenous mass enveloping the 
seeds is crowded with bacteria. 
The samples of seeds used in the following experiments are the 
same samples used in 1896 except No. 12 of the series of 1906. 
RESULTS OF SPROUTING EXPERIMENTS— 1900 
No. of 
Sample. Quality. 
1 Prime seed. 
2 Prime seed. 
3 Prime seed . 
4 Prime seed. 
5 Prime seed. 
6 Prime seed. 
7 Screenings, first quality . 
8 Screenings, first quality . 
9 Screenings, first quality . 
10 Screenings, second quality 
11 Screenings, third quality . 
Age in 
Seeds per 
Percent. 
Years. 
Pound. 
Germinating. 
6 
206,837 
92 
6 
228,818 
80 
6 
208,821 
70 
6 
78 
7 
66 
10 
72 
5 
259,340 
53 
6 
344,123 
25 
7 
266,233 
42 
6 
331,383 
42 
5 
312,385 
25 
