28 



Smut, Rust, and Chess. 



Vol. X. 



Smut, Rust, and Chess. 



Grosse Isle, Wayne co., Micliigan, 

 March 3rd, 1845. 



T(j the Editor of the Michigan Farmer : 



Sir, — I lately consulted Professor J. F. 

 W. Johnston, tiie eminent Agricultural Che- 

 mist of England, and autiior of the well 

 known " Lectures on the applications of 

 Chemistry and Geology to Agriculture,'''' 

 &c., on the cause and cure of those sad an- 

 noyances and causes of loss to the western 

 farmer — smut, rust, and chess, in wheat. 

 As his answer may probably prove benefi- 

 cial to others besides myself, I beg to hand 

 you a copy for publication in your paper. 

 Believe me, very sincerely, 



Your obedient servant, 



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; fermented urine, 

 blue vitriol, {sulphate of cnpjter,) and arse- 

 nic, 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 especially from the 

 wetness of your soil, or the rains and 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 disease; but it will lessen as your 

 land is better drained, and rendered drier. 

 But it is your chess in wheat which has 

 amused me. Not that it is extraordinary 

 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 amused 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 de- 

 generate wheat. The chess is a bromus — 

 a kind of grass, which resembles in its straw 

 the young wheat, but which branches out 

 in the head like the oat. Assume, with all 

 botanists, that species cannot be transmuted, 

 and the production of wheat from a bromus 

 is impossible. If it be impossible, then how 

 are your facts to be explained 1 You men- 

 tion two cases. 1st. That ofneio land, when 

 broken up and sown with wheat, chess comes 

 up. This means, when correctly interpreted, 



that the seed of the chess was more abun- 

 dant in the soil naturally, than the grass you 

 added artificially; and perhaps also that more 

 or less of your wheat was thrown out by the 

 frost and destroyed. 2nd. On old land, where 

 wheat is sown, if the wheat comes up thick 

 and early, it will keep down the chess per- 

 haps; 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, where it is 

 allowed to ripen 1 And it has ripened, and 

 shod its seed for a thousand years, in your 

 alluvial soils. The clay banks of your rivers 

 are full of it. And thouj^h 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 extirp9,ted, even where the great- 

 est care is taken. Such is the case in York- 

 shire, 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, under- 

 mines a portion of the clay banks between 

 which the river runs; and wherever the 

 river flows over his land, the labours 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 from the false assumption that the 

 change of wheat is possible, and thus come 

 to see proofs — ^just as our forefathers saw 

 ghosts — where only natural appearances 

 present themselves. Believe it to be im- 

 possible, and the explanation of appearances 

 may cost a little more thought, but the ex- 

 penditure 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 

 wheat. 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 ori- 

 ginally among grain seed : and may be pre- 

 vented by scrupulous attention on our part 



