160 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



tion, which seems never likely to be settled. Wheat and chess are two 

 distinct g-cnera, and one genus will not change into another. 



Dr. Trimble. — I will read the following extract from Dr. Darlington's 

 •work on weeds and plants: 



" This foreigner is a well known pest among our crops of wheat and rye, 

 and occasionally appears in the same fields for a year or two after the grain 

 crop; but being an annual, it is soon choked out by the perennial grasses, 

 and fallen seeds remain, like myriads of others, until the ground is again 

 broken up, or put in a favorable state for their development. The best 

 preventive of this and all similar evils, in the grain field, is to sow uouq 

 but good clean seed. 



"Among the curious vulgar errors which yet infest the minds of credu- 

 lous and careless observers of natural phenomena, may be mentioned the 

 firm belief of many of our farmers (some of them, too, good practical far- 

 mers), that this troublesome grass is nothing more than an accidental 

 variety or casual form of degenerate wheat, produced by some untoward 

 condition of the soil or unpropitious season, or some organic injury, though 

 it must be admitted, I think, by the most inveterate defender of that faith, 

 that in undergoing the metamorphosis the plant is surprisingly uniform in 

 its vagaries, in always assuming the exact structure and character of 

 bromus. 



"A similar hallucination has long prevailed among the peasantry of 

 Europe in relation to the supposed change of character in the grasses. 

 But in the Old World they were even more extravagant than with us, for 

 they believed that wheat underwent sundry transmutations, first changing 

 to rye, then to barley, then to bromus, and finally from bromus to oats. I 

 believe the most credulous of our countrymen have not been able as yet to 

 come up with their transatlantic brethren in this matter. This grass has 

 been cultivated within a few years as Willard's bromus, and the seed sold 

 at a high price. Tiie farmers found that they not only did not get a valu- 

 able grass, but were reall}' propagating a worthless and pernicious weed, 

 being thus doubly cheated." 



Mr. R. n. Williams declares, though in opposition to the theory of Dr. 

 Darlington, Mr. Prince and other eminent botanists, that chess is indige- 

 nous to this countr}''; that he has often seen it growing wild upon both 

 timber and prairie land. In that condition it is so minute that it is seldom 

 observed; but cultivation develops it to the size it is found in wheat fields. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter thinks all the chess theorists honestly mistaken, 

 and until something can be proved that the question shall be, so far as 

 discussing it in this club is concerned, considered as settled in favor of 

 botanical science. 



Flower Seed for Distribution. 



Mr. Wm. R. Prince sends in some flower seeds for distribution, and says 

 that lie intends to send others, in order that the gardens of the interior 

 may be filled with plants of permanent and enduring beauty. Those sent 

 in today are of the Japan, blue striped, hermerocaUis, which he says should 

 be kept in a cool, dry place, free from frost, until the middle of April, be- 

 fore being planted. Also the golden trumpet flower, bignoniajiava, a hardy 



