Vol. 6. 



C3ENESEE FARMER. 



137 



Work and Wages.— The New York Evening 

 Post gives some account of Mr. Simpson's en- 

 deavors to persuade the bounding nymphs of the 

 ballet in Europe to vouchsafe the delights of their 

 presence and their art on this side of the broad At- 

 lantic. First he addressed himself to the as yet 

 acknowledged though waning Queen of the light 

 fantistic toe, the Taglioni. She might be in- 

 duced to come, notwithstanding the dread of an 

 ocean voyage, but she must have a hundred thou- 

 sand dollars secured to her, in London, for a hun- 

 dred nights of performance. Then going a step 

 lower, he applied to the Neapolitan Cerito, but she 

 had engaged so far ahead, and so binding, that she 

 could entertain no proposition. Charlotfa Grisi 

 was so well content with her European position — 

 expecting soon, doubtless, to inherit the royal man- 

 tle falling from the shoulders of Taglioni — that she 

 would not ; and there was only left the plump and 

 pretty, but wide-mouthed German, Lucile Grahn. — 

 Lucile has a wide mouth, but so has Fanny Ellsler ; 

 and of the two, Lucile is much the younger. If Fan- 

 ny had her four hundred dollars a night, therefore, it 

 was clear that Lucile should have at least as much ; 

 she demanded ten thousand dollars for twenty-six 

 performances — with $400 a week for four assistants 

 of her own choosing, their passages all to be paid, 

 and divers little perquisites and privileges, not spe- 

 cifically mentioned. 



From the Fariucrs' Cabinet. 



SMUT, RUST, AND CHESS. 



Gross Isle, Wayne (^o., 5lichi?an, 

 March 3, ]8'1,'). 



To the Editor of the Michigan Fanner : 



Sir, — I lately consulted Professor.!. F. W. John- 

 ston, the eminent Agricultural Chemist of England, 

 and author of the well known " Lectures on the ap- 

 plications of Chemistry and Geology to Agricid- 

 turc,'' Sic, on the cause and cure of those sad an- 

 noyances and causes of loss to the western farmer — 

 emut, rust, and chess, in W'heat. As his answer 

 may probably prove beneficirl to others beside my- 

 self, I beg to hand you a copy for publication in 

 your paper. Believe me, very sincerely, 



Your obedient ser\'ant, Charles Fox. 



Agricultural Chemistry Association, 8 Bank 

 Street, Edinburgh. 

 About the smut and rust, your notice is all right. 

 Steeping in a solution of salt that will float an egg, 

 and then drying the wet seed with quicklime ; fer- 

 mented urine, blue vitriol (sulphate of copper,) and 

 arsenic, are also used as steeps for the same purpose 

 of killing the fungus, with greater or less effect. — 

 The rust arises from the over luxuriance of the 

 growth of your wheat, which will diminish ; but es- 

 pecially from the wetness of your soil, or the rains 

 ard mists to which, in the midst of so much water, 

 your land may be subject, A good dose of lime, 

 perhaps plastering your wheat, might help this dis- 

 ease ; but it will lessen as your land is better drain- 

 ed, and rendered drier. But it is your chess in 

 wheat which has amused me. Not that it is extra- 

 ordinary that a farmer in Michigan should entertain 

 that opinion, [that it is mutated wheat,] for it is 

 prevalent over many other parts of the United 

 States. Since I received your letter, I have amus- 

 ed myself further by reading nineteen articles upon 

 the subject in the 7th, 8th, and 9th volumes of the 

 Cultivator,, your best periodical in the agricultural 



line, and therefore am not surprised, that with other 

 farmers you should hold the opinion that chess is a 

 disease of the wheat, or degenerate wheat. The 

 clicss is a bromus — a kind of grass, which resernble« 

 in its straw the young wheat, but which branches out 

 in the head like the oat. Assume, with all botan- 

 ists, that species cannot be transmuted, and the pro- 

 duction of wheat from a bromus is impossible. If it 

 be impossible, then how are your facts to be ex- 

 plained ? You mention two cases. 1st. That of 

 new land when broken up and sown with wheat, 

 chess comes up. This means, when correctly inter- 

 preted, that the seed of the chess was more abun- 

 dant in the soil naturally, than the grass you added 

 artilicially : ami perhaps also that more or less of 

 your wheat was thrown out by the frost and destroy- 

 ed. 2nd. On old land, where wheat is sown, if the 

 wheat comes up thick and early, it will keep down 

 the chess perhaps ; if it is thrown out or picked up 

 by birds, or destroyed by frost, the blank spaces will 

 be filled up by the sprouting of those seeds which 

 are most abundant in the soil, which with you seems 

 to be chess, as in the flats of Yorkshire it is the wild 

 mustard. Can you wonder that this seed should 

 abound in the soil, when you remark how large a 

 crop of seed the chess bears, w-hen allowed to ripen ? 

 And it has ripened, and shed its seed for a thousand 

 years, in your alluvial soils. The clay banks of your 

 rivers are full of it . And though you extirpate it 

 from your land, the first river flood that comes and 

 overflows your land, will bring the mud and seeds of 

 the banks, and sow your land with it again. And 

 thus, in some places, generations may pass before 

 this weed be finally extirpated, even where the grea- 

 test care is taken. Such is the case in Yorkshire, 

 on the banks of the flat streams. No further off 

 than Northallerton, a good farmer has extirpated 

 with much care and expense, the wild mustard ; but 

 a flood comes, undermines a portion of the clay 

 banks between which the river runs ; and wherever 

 the river flows over his land^ the labors of years has 

 again to be undertaken, before the same seed can be 

 made to disappear. The error with the American 

 farmers is, that they start fiam the false assump- 

 tion that the change of v;heat is possible, and thus 

 come to see proofs — ^just as our forefathers saw- 

 ghosts — where only natural appearances present 

 themselves. Believe it to be impossible, and the ex- 

 planation of appearances may cost a little more 

 thought, but the expenditure of that thought will 

 lead to the truth. (Signed) 



James F. W. Johnston. 



The learned Professor, it will be seen, supposes 

 the chess to be a weed natural to our soil. I have 

 never observed it in this district to grow except 

 among wheat, or among grain crops immediately 

 succeeding Avheat. But being a distinct plant, it 

 must grow wild in some part of our country ; and 

 be that where it may, these remarks will there aptly 

 apply. But if the weed be not native here, we must 

 explain the prevalence of this pest in this part of the 

 country, by supposing that it has been brought here 

 originally among grain seed ; and may be prevented 

 by scrupulous attention on our part, as to the clean- 

 ness of our seed. By never sowing seed with chess 

 among it, we can escape the loss we suffer from this 

 weed ; but all grain growers must be aware how 

 much cleaning, and what care is requisite to sepa- 

 rate the chess from the wheat. Once introduced in- 

 to a farm, it may become impossible to eradicate it. 



C. F. 



