70 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



" A fioUl of some eig'lit or ten acres was alternately planted with corn 

 and oats, and then seeded witli timothy iU'd clover. TIuh lot was mowed 

 for some three or four years, and finally used fur pabturc as many more 

 years, when it was broken up or summer fallowed, and sowed to wheal. 

 Great pains was laken to procure li'ood, clean seed, free from cockle or 

 chess. On one part of tli'- lot (one-ha!f or three quarters of an acre) was a 

 slight depression, upon which, in the fall, the Hood waters of a iiei.i,fhl)()ring 

 nloug-h often settled (us it did in the present instance) and remained in a 

 cong^ealed state, and otherwise, duriufz; the winter and spring. Soon after 

 the drying up of the waters a fine, luxuriant green presented itself upon 

 the lately submerged depression. This was contrary to my expectations, 

 supposing everything was killed or 'drowned out' thereon. When the 

 wheat was well in head I visited this part of the lot again, when lo, and 

 behold! instead of wheat a fine thrifty growth of chess presented itself to 

 my astonished view, with here and there a wheat head interspersed. \Vhere 

 did this chess cotne from? Will wheat degenerate and become chess? 



Mr. Wm. R. Prince. — I have for fifty years seen this discussion renewed 

 from time to time, and have read statements many times where the ques- 

 tion has been satisfactorily determined by special culture ami critical inves- 

 tigation. Is the questiou never to be deemed settled? Will not the Club 

 pronounce their fiat on this nnitter and settle the moon stories at the same 

 time, once and forever, and refuse the propounding of either of those sub- 

 jects as ail evidence of an unsound mind ? and further, the Institute has no 

 time to waste on vagaries. 



lYitirum Salivum, common wheat, Bromus Sccalimus, chess or cheat, has 

 been distinctly described in a inanrun- that they cannot be mistaken, by 

 every botanic author from Wildenow down to the present time. They are 

 disluict genera, and there has never occurred, since man existed on this 

 gjobe, a single instance where one genus changes into another in the vege- 

 table or animal kingdom. And no such variation can ever occur, and I beg 

 a.11 such inquirers to try and comprehend the fact that nature has one 

 eternal law, which never vascillates any ntore in the minutest plant or tiie 

 tiny insect than in the largest tree or mightiest animal. Were it not so, 

 that there exists barriers impassable, all the races of animals and of trees 

 would become one confused mass of hybrids, and the wise purposes for 

 which each race was created could no longer be consumniat<'d, and God's 

 great work would prove a failure. 



Source of the Wool Supply. 



Mr. Sdon llobinson. — .\n estimate of the number of sheep in tlif- 

 fererit courttries, published in YVtc Jiural New Yorker, gives the follow- 

 ing figures; "The number of sheep in Sweden in 1SG2 was I,587,H0n; tht; 

 number in Algeria in 1HG2 was lO.OdO.UOU — product, loO.OOO (juintals of 

 wool; the number in l.'p|)er Canada the same year was 1,170,225 — increase 

 from preceding year, 120,000; the number in Francte in 18G2 was 36,000,000. 

 Three-lourths of these were Meriiuts or Merino grades. The number of 

 goats and kids in Franco was J, 400,000. In Ireland there was a d(,'crear»e 

 in IIJOJ, as compared witli flu- preceding ye.ir, of ir)2,201 sheep, and a lose 



