1846.] Chess. 139 



some elm tree in front of his house which he set nine years ago; 

 it was then so small that he brought it some distance on his shoul- 

 der. It is now one foot in diameter, and of a proportionate 

 height. Verily the hand of so skillful a cultivator is like the 

 philosopher's stone, it turns every thing it touches into gold, or 

 into something of more intrinsic value. — Boston Cultivator. 



CHESS. 



BY PROF. C. DEWEY. 



It hardly need be remarked that the articles on this subject in 

 the Prarie Farmer for last August and September, do not touch 

 the question whether wheat is changed into chess, as commonly 

 apprehended. Those cases, admitting their real existence, are in 

 the language of botanists, monsters. They are not the ordinary 

 form in which chess appears and are the only cases of the kind on 

 record. Wheat and chess have entirely distinct modes of growth 

 as their fruit is respected. Wheat bears a single spike or a culm, 

 long and regular; but chess grows in 'panicles or variously divi- 

 ded floM'n stalks, having a large number of spikelets on one culm. 

 If chess is altered wheat, the whole form of bearing fruit is 

 changed, as well as the general shape and aspect of the plant. 

 This form is taken by the chess and wheat before the time of 

 flowering. It cannot be the result of the action of any pollen, as 

 it exists before the pollen is formed. If chess and wheat grow on 

 the same root, which I should like fo see before the thing requires 

 my belief, and which I have always found to be separate, howe- 

 ver near they grow to each other, the change cannot be of the 

 hybrid kind. It is a change which affects the form, manner of 

 growth and of flowering, the nature of the leaves and especially 

 of the seeds. Hence, wheat and chess are placed in different 

 genera by all botanists, differing far more from each other than 

 wheat, rye and barley, do. Though wheat and chess belong to 

 the grasses, in the large application of that term by naturalists, so 

 do Indian corn, broom corn, sugar corn, &c., but they are separa- 

 ted far from each other by various characters and properties, and 

 placed in distinct genera for these constant differences. 



A hybrid is the product of two species of the same genera, and 

 of tw'o closely related species; and the form of the hybrid is 

 between the two and like the two. The pollen of the one spe- 

 cies is deposited on the stigmas of the other. So little is the ten- 

 dency in nature to this effect, that florists are obliged to take 

 much effort to obtain it. It is the law of the vegetable world, 

 that " the earth bring forth grass, the herb (plant) yielding seed, 



