183. Some years since, a mode of preparing old clover and
trefoil seeds by a process called doctoring, became so prevalent
as to excite the attention of the House of Commons. It appeared
in evidence before a committee, that the old seed of the white
clover was doctored by first wetting it slightly, and then drying
it with the fumes of burning sulphur, and that the red clover
seed had its colour improved by shaking it in a sack with a small
quantity of indigo; but this being detected after a time, the
doctors then used a preparation of logwood, fined by a little
copperas, and sometimes by verdigris; thus at once improving the
appearance of the old seed, and diminishing, if not destroying,
its vegetative power already enfeebled by age. Supposing no
injury had resulted to good seed so prepared, it was proved that
from the improved appearance, the market price would be enhanced
by this process from five to twenty-five shillings a hundred
weight. But the greatest evil arose from the circumstance of
these processes rendering old and worthless seed equal in
appearance to the best. One witness had tried some doctored seed,
and found that not above one grain in a hundred grew, and that
those which did vegetate died away afterwards; whilst about
eighty or ninety per cent of good seed usually grows.
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