1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



431 



whatever process the lime is furnished; it is evi- 

 dent that these industrious parasites are rapidly 

 elevating the bottom of the Southern Ocean. 

 The work is ijoing on there both rapidly and ex- 

 tensively; and millions of minute and immovable 

 beings, are preparing a habitation for animals of a 

 higher grade and difterent construction. 



CONVERTIBILITY OF WHEAT INTO CHEAT, 



OR CHESS. 

 To tile Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Madison County, Sept. 1S//j, 1835. 



Seeing Mr. Carter's communication in the last 

 No. of the Farmers' Register, stating that his man- 

 ager had found a bunch of wheat and cheat grow- 

 ing from the same root, and seeing from your re- 

 marks, that you are an advocate of the immuta- 

 bility of wheat, and differing from you in this re- 

 spect, I have been induced to send you the Jbllow- 

 ing facts (copied below iiom the American Jour- 

 nal of Geology, &c.,) stated by G. W. Feather- 

 Btonhaugh, Esq., a gentleman who stands unri- 

 valled in a knowledge of Natural Science, and to- 

 gether with the opinion of our venerable Madi- 

 son, ought certainly, Mr. Editor, to be a prepon- 

 derating weight in the scale of the mutability ot 

 wheat. Whilst this question has been so long 

 discussed, I have seen nothing said respecting 

 cheat in flax. I have, Mr. Editor, been in the 

 practice of raising flax for 20 years, and have ta- 

 ken pains to get my seed clear of the cheat seed, 

 (which differs as much from the cheat in wheat, 

 as wheat does from flax,) notwithstanding I have 

 been frequently disappointed in my crop of flax, 

 owing to the quantity of cheat. Why is it that 

 this cheat is found no where but with flax? 

 I do not recollect of having seen a single stalk on 

 my farm away from my flax ground. If flax is 

 seeded too early in the spring, or the flax should 

 receive a check after coming up, there will be a 

 quantity of cheat. I can account, for it, Mr. Editor, 

 but in one way — and that is, that the flax degen- 

 erates to cheat. 



"The opinion continues to be very much encour- 

 aged amongst agriculturists, that the heads of cheat or 

 chess, which are often found in wheat fields, take their 

 origin from seeds like those which they bear, and not 

 from the seeds of wheat, which many insist are immu- 

 table and undegenerate in their nature. This opinion is 

 a very natural, and perhaps, a very useful one to en- 

 tertain, as it induces great vigilance on the part of the 

 farmer in the selection of his seed wheat. Having 

 practised farming upon a tolerable extensive scale du- 

 ring the most active pail of my life, my opinions as to 

 the immutability of wheat, were long ago shaken. 

 After attending to the selection of seed with the most 

 scrupulous care, and with experimental views, I was 

 too often disappointed when I had the greatest reason 

 to entertain sanguine expectations in favor of the im- 

 mutability system. Upon more than one occasion too, 

 when I had every possible persuasion, and had seen 

 the spring open upon a fine field, as I thought, of 

 wheat in the grass, I had the mortification to find it 

 shoot up almost entirely into chess. The friends of 

 immutability told me that the chess had eaten the 

 wheat out, but they never told me how the chess got 

 into the field, or why the wheat had not eaten it out, 

 which I should much have preferred. However, 1 

 sometimes had a great crop of wheat, and perhaps 

 the chess was eaten out upon these occasions. 



"Having had a liberal share of agricultural contro- 

 versy, I am content to let others enjoy their opinions, 

 however distant they may be from my own on such 

 subjects, and do not wish to be thought desirous of en- 

 croaching upon a province, which now engages the 

 attention of many able agricultural editors. 



"1 have a fact, however, to communicate to my bo- 

 tanical and agricultural readers, which ought to have 

 weight in a controverted matter of very great interest. 



"Whilst on a geological excursion this summer, in 

 Virginia, at the close of the wheat harvest, Mr. Con- 

 way, of Rapid Aim, Madison county, presented me 

 with a plant of cheat or chess, which he had plucked 

 up by the roots from one of his wheat fields. Mr. 

 Conway's attention having been long drawn to the ap- 

 pearance of cheat in his wheat fields, was in the habit 

 of examining plants of this kind from time to time. 

 The plant he exhibited, and which was but recently 

 taken from the field, consisted of four stalks, not in the 

 least broken, and as perfect as when they were grow- 

 ing in the fields. Each of these stalks bore a prolusion 

 of the heads of cheat, and nothing whatever that ap- 

 proached, in the least, to an ear oi wheat. As far as 

 the heads went it was a perfect specimen oi' cheat or 

 chess. The plant having been carefullj drawn from 

 the field had all its roots attached to it, without any 

 visible fracture, and in the most natural manner. Mr. 

 Conway, however, drew my attention to the skin of 

 the kernel of the seed from which this plant had pro- 

 ceeded, and which was attached to the radicle in a sit- 

 uation quite distinct from the lateral roots. The skin 

 was that of a kernel of wheat, and upon applying a 

 microscope to it, I found that it had been a kernel of 

 wheat, and nothing else; not differing in the least from 

 the skins of wheat seed as they are often found adhering 

 to the radicle of wheat plants, bearing regular ears of 

 wheat when the heads are ni II formed. This was the 

 opinion of Mr. Conway, who declared himself satisfied 

 from the inspection of this plant, that, in this particu- 

 lar instance at least, a kernel of wheal had produced a 

 plant, bearing four stalks with ears of cheat or chess. 

 Mr. Conway informed me, that one or two of his neigh- 

 bors had found similar plants this summer, and come 

 to the same conclusion, that cheat could be produced 

 from wheat seeds. 



"The evening before my interview with Mr. Con- 

 way, the apparent convertibility of wheat into cheat 

 was the subject of a long conversation between Mr. 

 Madison (under whose hospitable roof I found most 

 welcome head-quarters during my tour in Virginia,) 

 and myself. We had been old correspondents on ag- 

 ricultural subjects, and we entered into it con amore. 

 That venerable man, who at the age of eighty-two, 

 preserves all the vigor of a highly polished and unri- 

 valled mind, related to me the many experiments he 

 had personally conducted in his garden at Montpelier, 

 by sowing cheat to produce wheat, but all in vain, he 

 had never succeeded in prevailing upon it to retract 

 its perverse deviation from its type; and Mr. Madison 

 had paid too much attention to the production of cheat 

 in wheat fields, not to be impressed with the many 

 strong reasons there were to suppose that wheat, which 

 belongs to the Gramineae, could degenerate into a plant 

 which approaches the grasses. He examined, on my 

 return to his house, the plant which I brought from 

 Mr. Conway's, and expressed himself satisfied that, 

 in this particular instance a kernel of wheat had pro- 

 duced a plant bearing heads of cheat. 1 still possess 

 this curious plant, and it will give me great pleasure 

 to show it to any agricultural or botanical gentleman 

 who desire to be convinced that I have related the 

 state of this plant faithfully. It appears to me, howe- 

 ver, that if farmers would carefully remove plants of 

 cheat at the proper season, after the heads are out, but 

 whilst the stalks are yet green, that the controversy on 

 this subject would soon cease. The single fact I have 

 brought forward, ought to have great weight, and I 



