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One of the most weighty objections which may be urged against the 

 notion that chess is wheat in a degenerate or abnormal condition is the fact, 

 that chess is a distinct species of grass, known to botanists as Bromus 

 Secalinus, affording seed which Avhen sown produces chess plants, under all 

 circumstances, and never wheat. A thousand plants may be examined 

 and the probability is that not one would be found to differ materially 

 from the botanical description of the species. Now if by the action of 

 frost one plant is transformed into the other, how is it that there is no 

 gradation in the change observable, that the metamorphosis should in all 

 cases be so uniform and complete ? Of late years much has been written 

 by botanists on the metamorphosis of plants, or vegetable morphology, 

 as it is usually called. Like most novel views, true though they may be, 

 this met with considerable opposition, hence botanists who embraced this 

 hypothesis, (a class of men second to none for accuracy of observation,) 

 ransacked the vegetable world for specimens of plants in an abnormal 

 state, in support of their position ; but all that their investigations have 

 enabled them to establish, all indeed that they were required to prove is, 

 that all parts of a plant may be referred to the leaf as a type, that the 

 floral envelopes and organs of reproduction, calyx, corolla, stamens, pis- 

 tils, and seed are formed of the same elements and arranged upon the 

 same plan as leaves; hence, when growing under peculiar circumstances, 

 the different parts of a flower may be changed into each other, or into 

 true leaves, and such changes have been very frequently observed ; but 

 I am not aware that there is an instance on record proving that any cir- 

 cumstances have so altered the character of a plant as to make it appear 

 to a botanist not only specifically but generically distinct. 



2nd. Chess is well known to be a British grass ; it is found in the 

 grain fields of England where the winters are seldom severe enough to 

 injure the wheat plant. It is true, however, that chess is much more 

 abundant here than in England. Being familiar with all the British 

 grasses, excepting two or three very rare species, I could not remember 

 having noticed chess frequently in wheat crops in England; and I find on 

 referring to some works on British husbandry, that it is not generally 

 included in the lists of the weeds of agriculture. Sir William Hooker in 

 hia British Flora says of the plant "not rare" thereby implying that it 

 is far from common; but Dr. Gray, in his Botany of the Northern United 

 States, very truly remarks "grain fields, &c., too common." gone may 

 be ready to conclude that chess is more abundant in wheat crops here. 



