GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 57 



Means of control 



Sow clean seed. Chess is smaller and lighter than wheat, and 

 care in cleaning should remove it. But if it is suspected that a few 

 seeds remain, stir the wheat in a barrel of water just before sowing ; 

 the Chess will rise to the top. If the grain is treated with formalin 

 for the purpose of destroying suspected spores of smut, the Chess 

 may be removed at the same time. When the weed makes a first 

 appearance in clean soil, under no circumstances let it be fouled for 

 years by allowing the Chess to ripen and scatter its seeds. Hand- 

 pulling and burning is worth while in such an instance, even though 

 the quantity be so large as to make the task rather strenuous. 

 Stubbles where seeds have matured should have surface cultivation 

 after harvest, in order to cause them to germinate ; 

 then plow them under, and put no more grain on 

 that land until a hoed crop of some kind needing 

 very thorough tillage has had a place in the 

 rotation. 



SOFT CHESS 



Brbmus hordeaceus, L. 



Introduced. Annual or winter annual. Propa- 

 gates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : June to July. 



Seed-time: July to August. 



Range : Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward 

 to the Mississippi River. Not common, but 

 "becoming frequent." 



Habitat: Fields and waste places. 



Soft Chess differs from Cheat in being smaller, 

 the culms one to two feet tall, erect, slender, 

 simple. The whole plant is softly hairy, while 

 Cheat is smooth. Panicle erect and rather com- 

 pact instead of open and drooping, the spikelets 

 having shorter pedicels ; these are six- to ten- 

 seeded, the glumes covered with soft appressed 

 hairs, the lemma, tipped with an awn about as " _ 



long as itself, and straight. (Fig. 27.) C hewi (Sromut 



It should be fought in the same manner as the hordeaceus). x i. 



