Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-09-13
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WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 10, 1854.
Wheat and Chess.

to chess, so generally believed to result from
winter killing. Communications on this sub
ject have already begun to come in, some by
way of inquiry, and some to explain the na-
ture of the change which takes place when
one plant becomes the other. We select the
two first received of each of these, for the
purpose of giving as requested, our views on
the subject.
The first is from a correspondent at Water
vile, n. Y. He describes a very promising
field of wheat, as it appeared ON the approach
of the last winter, believed to be from very
clean seed, but which was almost totally de-
stroyed. The field remained untouched, and
is now covered with growth of straw suffi-
Gent for the growth of crop of wheat of
sixteen to twenty bushels to the acre, and
-eights of this is chess Our cores
pendent requests an explanation.
Now, it would require person possessing
more of the ability of seeing a long way
through the dark, than any elairvoyant, to
know so far off as we are, all that had taken
place i'll this field, and where the seed of the
chess came from. But as we have seen many
such cases with quite similar results, where
the chess plants very evidently sprang from
chess seeds, we can offer an explanation of
the manner in which this might have occurred
Chess is most singular plant. /. The
seed is inconspicuous, and we have found
plenty of it in wheat, pronounced by men
who prided themselves on their keen ewes, as
perfectly clean. g The seed is very hardy,
anil will escape destruction, and grow, when
all other grains are destroyed 8. 1t accom-
modates itself wonderfully to circumstances;
1t viii grow unobtrusively and unseen in
timothy meadow, and ripen and drop its seeds
from plants not over two or three inches high,
n w have nd In nd IN
this way secretly penetrate its kind and fill
the soil with its grains These same minute
and unseen plants, if they had had plenty of
room and mellow soil, would have sprung up,
formed large stool, thrown up numerous
stalks, and borne each three to five thousand
grains,- enough to seed q whole acre. 4.
Hence, when wheat winter kills. the plants
which otherwise would have beer kept down
and never seen, spring up and spread pro-
digiously, and cover the whole ground with
their rampant growth. 5. A portion of a
field has been killed, and, as was supposed,
turned all TO chess another portion escaped,
and no chess was observed; yet by measuring
oil square rod of each, and examining with
great care and minuteness, it was found there
were as many chess plants of diminutive size
among the good wheat. as there were of lux
uriant vigor on the destroyed portion the
grow yielding nearly thousand times as much
seed as the other. This might have been the
case with the crop our correspondent men-
tons; but there are several ways in which
chess seed is spread artifcially, which farmers
but little suspect; and few grains of these
will multiply i'll one season to a heavy seed
ing of the ground. Foul ground, in the same
way, may produce similar result; or two or
three of these causes may operate together.
1t is often surprising and unaccountable
how weeds will spring up and cover the
ground, without our knowing how the land
had been seeded with them. We have known
a meadow that had lain some twenty years
or more, to yield dense growth of foxtall
grass as soon as the sod was inverted; and in
another case an old pasture on being plowed,
was covered with heavy crop of pig weeds.
1t would have been very absurd, because we
could not tell where the seed came from, to
have asserted that the timothy had been
changed in one case to foxtail, and in the
other to pig weed.
The different causes we have already men,
toned, have been found amply sufficient,
when taken together or separately, to explain
all the supposed instances of transmutation
that have come under our notice. But, sup
posing there are cases very difficult to explain;
this difficulty cannot be got over by admitting
a still greater dificulty,-nay, an utter i'm
possibility. Seeds, when planted, often pro-
duce new UGrieties, but never neso species.
Seedlings never can and never have crossed
the specific boundary. But wheat and chess
are not only separate Species but they belong
to entirely different GENERA and it would
be as impossible for the seed of one to pro-
duce the other, as for COW to bear young
colt, or a merino eve litter of Berkshire
pigs.
The other correspondent whose commune
cation we have already alluded to, residing at
Portland, Chatauque county, merely assumes
that change may be produced in wheat by
the pollen from the chess falling upon it. But
as there is no proof whatever, Of such re-
suit, and as science deals in certatntieS, not in
we cannot attach great impor-
lance to this supposition, especially as no
such cross was ever produced from different
genera, by all the careful and skilful expert
ments ever performed. Who ever heard of a
cross between a cherry and an apple trees
Or between pumpkin and pine applet
Who ever heard of half bred animals resulting
from the dog and the raccoon? or from the
domestic duck and the turkey buzzards
When these have taken place, we shall be
more ready to look for a half transmitted
wheat head.
character. Ii wet weather and freezing VIII
change wheat to chess in one place, it will do
so i'll another, under like influences. But
there are countries possessing climate like
ours, where chess is never found-where no
winter killing ever produces vestige of this
weed and some of our own farmers, to our
certain knowledge, have with great and long
continued care and labor, ceased to raise any
chess whatever, no matter what the win
tiers NAV be. In the one case, wheat is
raised in regions of country where the
weed has never been introduced, where
there is so seed, consequently it cannot grow.
In the other, the seeds have been extirpated
from the farms,-hence no chess is ever seen.
With single question we conclude these
remarks. Why is it, that among the count
ess millions of plants that are said to change
rom wheat to chess not one is ever caught in
he act; or why is it that there should not
'e found one solitary plant partly changed, or
With distinct wheat and chess on the same
DOT or stems Large prizes of money have
,een repeatedly offered for such curiosites,
tut they have never made their appearance,
although we often hear of them a long way
III. The fact is, they never existed Country
Gentleman.
Boys, did you ever think that this great
world, with all its wealth and woe, with its
mines and mountains, its oceans, seas, and
1vers, steamboats, and ships, railroads and
roc nm r1,nftr.