WHEAT WEEDS, INSECTS, DISEASES 335 



of the chess seed. These seed will often remain buried in 

 the soil for several years before coming up. Its great 

 prolificacy as compared with wheat is also responsible 

 for the belief that wheat turns to chess. -As chess seed is 

 smaller and lighter than wheat, it can be removed by 

 carefully screening and fanning the seed wheat. Also if 

 the wheat is stirred in water just before sowing the chess 

 seed will rise to the top and can be taken off. Hand-pulling 

 and burning the plants in the field is often resorted to. 

 Land that is badly infested with chess should be planted 

 to intertilled crops until the chess has been eradicated. 



Cockle is particularly a weed of grain fields, the seed 

 usually being sown with the seed grain. It grows to a 

 height varying from one to three feet. The stem is slender 

 and erect with a few branches near the top. The flowers 

 are reddish purple and are borne on long, hairy peduncles, 

 The calyx is ovoid, quite hairy and distinctly ten-ribbed. 

 Five long, pointed lobes extend beyond the petals. The 

 seeds are borne in ovoid, one-celled capsules averaging 

 about a half-inch in length. The seeds are black or dark 

 brown, round or somewhat triangular in shape with rows 

 of short teeth on the surface. The seed of cockle is poison- 

 ous and when ground with wheat renders the flour un- 

 wholesome. For this reason the presence of cockle in wheat 

 will materially reduce the grade of the wheat on the mar- 

 ket. The chief means of control is the sowing of clean 

 seed. When cockle is present in the field it should be hand- 

 pulled before the seeds are mature. -Badly infested fields 

 should not be sown to grain but planted to intertilled 

 crops. 



Field garlic grows from one to three feet tall. The 

 plants spring from "small, ovoid, membranous-coated 

 bulbs." The flowers, which are borne in umbels, are of 



