Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1908 — Farm and Garden [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Farm and Garden

FOUL CLOVER SEED. Makes It Plain Where the Weed Crop Comee From. The Connecticut experiment station is doing a greut work in testing clover seed. It obtained fifty-one samples of the seed just as it is sold by Connecticut seed dealers. These samples were tested for weed seeds and also to see what per ceht of the clover seed would sprout. The result of the test shows that only one-sixth of the seed as sold was tit to use. Three samples were adulterated with a worthless plaut, and forty-one had more or less dodder, the most dangerous weed or parasite which can get into the crop. Few days pass without a complaint from some one who finds the dodder in his clover. Samples are often sent in showing the clover plants strangled by a pest which twines around them and sucks their life away. The cut shows a mild form of the affliction. Think of putting the seeds of this curse into the ground wbeu you seed your clover! Yet that i» just what is being done when we buy ordinary clover seed. In one sample of this Connecticut clover seed 6,441 seeds of the dodders

were iu one pound of clover seed. In that same sample there wex - e 12,769 seeds of plantain, 1,695 of foxtail, 1,017 of sorrel. 226 of bindweed, 2,147 of lamb’s quarters, 1,808 of wild carrot, 226 of curled dock, 1,243 of tumbleweed and many others, making a total of 44,522 weed seeds in a pound. In another sample there were 78,604 weed seeds in one pound sold as clover seed. Just imagine what a farmer does when he sows six or eight pounds of such stuff on an acre! Another thing was the low quality of the clover itself. It has been demonstrated that the heaviest seeds give the strongest plants during early growth and in most cases largest yields. This Connecticut bulletin states that clover seed of average quality should run 302,000 to the pound. While lighter seed may give a greater number of plants, a greater proportion of tffein would die out or do poorly. In twenty-six out of fifty-one samples the seeds weighed less than the standard. As for vitality, the average of these fifty-one Connecticut samples was 86.0 per cent—that is, the number out of a hundred strong enough to put out a sprout. One sample showed only 64.2 per cent of seeds with any life to them. One sample was so poor that only 48.1 per cent of the seed was clover, and only 84 per cent of that would sprout. Ttiree samples were evidently adulterated with black medic. Seed of this plant is imported from Germany expressly to adulterate clover seed. It is so much like clover seed that an expert is needed to detect it. In one sample there were 11,615 seeds of dodder in one pound of clover. With a seeding of eight pounds per acre this means two seeds of dodder to each square foot, and tests prove that this dodder is not dead seed.

Hints to Mushroom Growers. In turning up a portion of a bed maggots may be discovered iu the manure. A few may do no perceptible harm, but a large number will eat up the spawn, leaving uot even a thread to develop a single mushroom. Many kiuds of insects are apt to swarm in warm cellars, together with the egg laying varieties which cause the maggots, regardless of foul air which may often accumulate and which is an injury to the mushrooms. In each succeeding bed in large cellars insects follow up the new beds and become more vigorous. A high temperature such as we bad last fall Is conducive to their continued existence In summer garb. A good crop, however, can be secured in spite of them when the houses are kept at al’ times cool. When mushrooms are grown in glass houses the return pipes are best run under the walks. In the usuah way of heating, where the pipes run under the benches, paper placed 'over the beds will be found beneficial as a protector from excessive heat and drying. With good, vigorous spawn, properly prepared compost and care about the requirements of heat and moisture, a good crop is a positive certainty. Tberte are garden crops equal to if not surpassing the mushroom as money makers to the producer, but no on* need complain of well managed mushrooms. —~

DODDER ON CLOVER PLANT.