Adulterations. 
Seed quality. 
Quantity 
to be sown. 
98 
This impurity is very common in French sainfoin, and in the field can cause great 
damage. It is frequently cleaned out and sold separately. Troublesome impurities, which 
can, however, be readily removed, are the brome grasses, viz. barren brome (Bromus 
sterilis), and soft brome (Bromus mollis, fig. 48), Corn crowfoot (Ranunculus arvensis) 
and pods of trefoil (Medicago lupulina fig. 44) very frequently occur. Alsatian sain- 
foin often contains 20°/o or more of these impurities; farmers buy such seed, and sow 
it, apparently never thinking that it ought to have been cleaned. 
iN 
OSD 
i INS 
iii . 
ye 
c a b 
Fig. 42. Fig. 43 (after Nobbe.) Fig. 44. 
Burnet, Soft Brome. Trefoil, 
Poterium sanguisorba, lL. Bromus mollis, L. Medicago lupulina, L. 
False fruit. a. False fruit, natural a. Pod with persistent calyx 
a. Natural size ; size 5 : 
bX 7; b. the same, magnified, b. seed, natural size; 
c, transverse -section. shewing the outer ec. seed, X< 7. 
pale; 
c. the same, magnified, 
shewing the inner 
pale, and the stalk ; 
d, the caryopsis, magnified. 
Adulteration of sainfoin seed is rare. 
Seed and amounts to be sown. Of 400 samples analysed at the Zurich seed station, 
the average purity was 95.3°/, and the germination 71°/o. Good commercial seed should 
have 98°/o purity, and 80°%/o germination = 78.4 °/o of pure and germinating seed. One Ib. 
of pure seed contains, on an average, 22,500 grains, therefore 1000 seeds weigh about 
310 grains. The weight per bushel is 40 lbs. on an average, but may be much greater 
if the seed is very good. Good seeds should be large, plump, bright in colour, and readily 
crushed between the teeth. When kept, the germination rapidly diminishes, and if the 
seed lies for a year, it becomes dark, hard, and shrivelled, and is of no use. 
An acre requires 78 lbs. of unshelled seed containing 78° pure and germinating 
= 60.84 lbs. of pure and germinating seed. Although not usual with fodder-plants, it is 
advantageous to sow sainfoin with the drill, because it is then more regularly buried 
and germinates better. If sown broadcast, and dry weather sets in, only a small proportion 
of the plants manage to pierce the pod: the greater number are imprisoned and die. If the 
pod has been removed i.e. if milled seed is used, the germination is quicker, more certain, 
and more uniform. Shelling or milling is difficult, because the pericarp is very tough, and 
id 
