ENCLOSURE TO PART 111. { 
Mr. DUCKER said that he had a design of a machine coming out 
from U.S.A. and as soon as he had these designs he would circulate 
information to the other members of the Section. 
Mr. CAMERON also promised to report on a machine he had 
heard of in Rhodesia. 
The Section considered that it would be useful to have 
information of such machines and mutually undertook to circulate 
information should any fall into their hands. 
3 TREATMENT OF SEED BEFORE SOWING. 
Mr. CAMERON said that at Gatooma in Rhodesia seed was 
treated with sulphuric acid; a 5-gal. drum was used and from this four 
sections were cut down, so that only a skeleton was left; this was 
lined with steel mesh {th oi an inch thick and on top heavy lead 
plates. The whole was put into a larger drum containing sulphuric 
acid, it remained for five minutes and was then washed five successive 
times in water; this cost about 5d. a lb., but could be done for 2d. 
if large quantities of sulphuric acid were bought. Suphuric was used 
three times and about 30lbs. of seed done at one time. This method 
also served to screen the seed. He had found that too much lint left 
on the seed damaged the planter, so that for seed purposes a de-linter 
had to be used; de-linting facilitated planting, but did not give any 
better germination; the sulphuric acid helped to reduce to the 
consistency of treacle any bad, weak seed. 
Mr. NYE had tried sulphuric acid treatment and found that the 
longer in the acid, the higher the germination. He tried immersing 
in sulphuric at 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes; in some cases the seed was 
split; even then germination was not affected. The table below shows 
the results observed : — 
No. of days 
Treatment. Germination to complete 
percentage. germination. 
Control No. 1: 
No treatment A os 63.5 
Control No. 2: : 
Water soaked 10 minutes 35 AL 
H2 SO4 5 mins. Fy + 76 rll 
H2 SO4 {9 mins. EH ks 81 “i 
H2 SO4 mins. rs 2a 83.5 
H2 SO4 mins. ah = 96 
A subsidiary test on the germination of seeds floating on the 
surface of the acid showed low germination :— 
5 mins. ... as hs 329, germinated 
10 mins... ts Ss 339, 
15 mins.  ... a a0; i 
20 mins.  ... al 3 769 
Mr. DUCKER found that a large percentage of the border line seed 
was killed by the acid and that the germination of vntrented seed was 
better. 
Mr. PARNELL suggested that any investigations should carry a 
crop right through, as it had been found that in the case of some other 
crops, where seed had been treated, the germination was cood, but 
the subsequent growth of the crop was affected. 
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