ADULTERANTS DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED
As a further and more thorough discussion of the frequent adulterants, Prof. H. F. Roberts, botanist of the Kansas experiment station, has kindly prepared, with illustrations, for this volume the quoted statements which follow here:
“The immense and steadily increasing value of alfalfa as a forage crop in the United States, and the high price of the seed, make the securing of sound, pure seed a matter of supreme importance to farmers, and render it equally important for them to be able to recognize, by sight, the presence in alfalfa seed of the adulterants and seeds of certain weeds most commonly known to occur. There is conclusive evidence that an amount of adulteration and substitution is actually practiced with alfalfa seed. It is usually charged that this is done abroad, especially, as is alleged, in Germany.
“The writer has been informed that, to a limited extent, the practice exists in America. The chief adulterant used is the seed of the Yellow trefoil, or, as it is sometimes called, Hop clover or Black medick. (See illustrations opposite [pages 26] and [32].) About fifty species of plants are known as ‘medicks’ or, scientifically, Medicago; but it so happens that the only perennial species among them is alfalfa, which goes under the botanical name of Medicago sativa, ([p. 1]). Other species such as Yellow trefoil (Medicago lupulina) ([p. 38]) and Bur clover (Medicago denticulata,) while they possess some forage value and are useful to a limited extent, lack, for the most part, the lush, abundant growth of alfalfa itself, and are notably inferior through the fact of their annual habit. It is because of its perennial nature, therefore, as well as on account of its rank, succulent growth, that no species of annual leguminous plant can hope to compete with alfalfa for a moment in importance. This means, then, that any substitute for alfalfa seed, or adulteration of it with the seed of another related species, such as Yellow trefoil or Bur clover, is distinctly a fraud of serious character, despite the fact that the adulterants are plants that make fair pasturage and have some forage value. They are merely annuals, ending their life with the season, whereas a field of alfalfa should live twenty years or more, under right conditions.