New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 137 
At this time we wish to call particular attention to the desira- 
bility of hand-sifting alfalfa seed before sowing. Dodder seeds, 
being much smaller than those of alfalfa, are easily removed by 
sifting through a wire sieve having twenty meshes to the inch. 
Unfortunately, ready-made sieves of the proper kind are not 
readily obtainable at hardware stores, but a cheap, serviceable 
sieve for the purpose may be made by constructing a light 
wooden frame twelve inches square by three inches deep and 
tacking over the bottom of it 20 x 20 mesh steel-wire cloth made 
of No. 34 (W. & M. gauge) wire. Since few hardware dealers 
carry such wire cloth in stock the Station has found it necessary 
to have a quantity of it made to order. This has been placed 
in the hands of Dorchester & Rose, hardware merchants, Geneva, 
N. Y.; who will sell it (during 1907) at twenty cents per square » 
foot, postpaid. 
With such a sieve a man should be able to clean from three 
to seven bushels of seed per day. One-fourth to one-half pound 
of seed should be put into the sieve at a time and vigorously 
shaken during one-half minute. In order that: the work may 
be uniformly thorough the operator should use a cup holding 
not over one-half pound thereby making it impossible to get too 
large a quantity at one time. A watch should be kept constantly 
in sight and no more than two batches of seed should be sifted 
in one minute. «+ | 
_ If the seed is known to contain but little dodder, one sifting 
will do; but when there is much dodder and particularly if the 
dodder is of the large-seeded kind, two siftings, both made 
strictly in accordance with the above directions, are recom- 
mended. 
Our experiments indicate that by the above method almost 
any alfalfa seed on the market in this State may be made prac- 
tically free from dodder seed and safe to sow. Of course it is 
advisable to begin with seed as nearly free from dodder as can 
be conveniently obtained. Various other small weed seeds, 
broken seeds and dirt, as well as some of the smaller alfalfa 
seeds, also pass through the sieve. The quantity of siftings 
varies from one to five pounds per bushel according to the origi- 
nal cleanness of the seed and the thoroughness of sifting. It is 
believed that little if any real loss is sustained by the rejection 
of the siftings. 
How many different species of dodder may be found in alfalfa 
seed we do not know; but from the practical standpoint of their 
