172 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



WHEAT TUKNING TO CHESS. 



I will close with one more example. A year or two ago the editors of a 

 western paper sent me a specimen which was sent them. It was a small stalk 

 of chess with seeds upon it, and on one of its roots was the remains of an old 

 kernel of wheat. The person who sent it says: "Here is certain evidence 

 that wheat turns to chess: there is no theory this time, for here is the bearing 

 chess plant, and there below is the old wheat shell from whence grew the 

 chess." Now here comes in one case where some knowledge of the ways in 

 which plants grow, is of value. Wheat, corn, chess, oats, barley, and many 

 other plants, are monocotyledonous. From the seed bursts out a very short, 

 stumpy swelling called the radicle. The radicle becomes quite long in the 

 common bean and pumpkin vine, and raises the seed leaves out of the ground ; 

 but in wheat, and the large class to which it belongs, this radicle remains very 

 short, — not more, probably, than the eighth of an inch long. From the end, 

 in three or more places, burst out some fibrous roots. Such plants never have 

 tap roots, which I have heard theorists talk about, — self-styled practical men. 

 If this specimen spoken of grew from wheat, it must have several little roots 

 close to it, or coming from it, and the stem going above it to the surface. I 

 placed the specimen in a saucer of warm water and left it over night. The 

 next morning the part looking like a wheat kernel had separated from the 

 root. I placed it under a microscope: it was the skin or bran of an old wheat 

 kernel which a root from the chess plant had grown into after the little nour- 

 ishment which might be left there. In hunting for plants during my life, I 

 suppose I have twenty times pulled up a plant which had thrust one root into 

 a small snail shell ; but I never supposed for a moment that the snail had turned 

 to a root which had produced the plant. 



It is an easy matter in almost every case to find the old chess kernel from 

 which grew the stem above ground. Dig up some of them and gently wash 

 them: then look with care. Good looking, good eyes, and a knowledge of 

 how to use them, are a great help to any one. 



