366 



THE ILLmOIS FAEMEK. 



Dec. 



Rye Converted to Chess. 



I have been an attentive reader of the articles 

 in your paper in reference to wheat and rye turn- 

 ing to chess. I will state a fact : In July, 1861, 

 desiring to try an experiment of sowing rye 

 with buckwheat, which I have seen do well and 

 be remunerative, I sowed about four acres with 

 rye and buckwheat. My crop of buckwheat was 

 gathered and yielded well. The rye crop, in 

 about two weeks after, looked well and promised 

 fair. 



In September I sowed another lot of six acres 

 with rye, the same seed. 



Last spring in looking at the rye upon the 

 buckwheat stubble, it presented a strange ap- 

 pearance, and at the proper season a better crop 

 of chess in head, no farner need have desired. 

 Three-fourths of the field was chess. This was 

 cut green, — fed to the cows, and was eaten with 

 avidity. 



The rye sown in September was reaped and 

 gathered in season, acd was free from chess. 



Another fact under my observation : It is a 

 custom with our farmers to soak their seed wheat 

 in strong brine — the shrivelled, small and blas- 

 ted grains, together with foul seed, chess, cockle, 

 etc., float and are skimmed off. 



A neighbor of mine, preparing to sow wheat, 

 in which was a good deal of shrunken grains, but 

 otherwise clean, soaked it in brine, and the 

 shrunken wheat was skimmed off. Finding that 

 he did not have quite seed enough to finish his 

 lot — there being a small angle in a corner, un- 

 sown — he sowed this shrunken and shrivelled 

 wheat, and the next year his wheat crop, except 

 this angle, was free from chess, and his corner 

 of shrivelled wheat was a chess crop, free from 

 wheat. C. 



Morristoivn, JV. J. 



We give place to this communication merely to 

 explain how easily all weeds fiud their way into 

 cultivated crops. A weed is any plant that has 

 small seeds that become mixed with the seed of 

 crops, or otherwise spread in the soil, and that 

 are extremely hardy and spread under adverse 

 circumstances. Out of many thousand native 

 and introduced plants, a very few have become 

 excessively troublesome as weeds, and chess is 

 among the number. The soil may contain mil- 

 lions of minute seed all through it, without con- 

 stituting a ten-thousandth part of its bulk, and 

 wholly imperceptible on close examination, re- 

 maining dormant, as all seeds do, when buried 

 too deep, but springing into vegetation when 

 brought near the surface. Luxuriant crops of- 

 ten keeps such weeds smothered down, till some 

 accident occurs to kill the crop, when the weeds 

 spread upward and take the space thus given to 

 them. Hence, superficial observers and hasty 

 reasoners think that the plants of the disappeared 

 crop have actually turned into the loeeds. 



The seeds of the chess plant require a million 

 to a bushel, and ten thousand, or one-hundredth 

 of a bushel, would seed an acre, one plant to ev- 

 ery two feet square, — as we have often seen 

 them cover a square yard when they had plenty 

 of room to grow in. These ten thousand seed 

 would constitute but a two-millionth part of the 



soil, and would never be detected till growing. 

 The seeds are also very hardy, and may be scat- 

 tered in manure, and many other ways. They 

 will grow and bear a few seed when less than six 

 inches high, under a dense growth of wheat and 

 rye, but when anything happens to kill the crop, 

 these little plants spring up and spread in wild 

 luxuriance. Knowing these characteristics, any 

 one could have known by reasoning beforehand, 

 that cases would continually occur among care- 

 less farmers, where they would think their crops 

 had changed to the weed — or to any other weed 

 that would alike take its place. Such cases are 

 accordingly occuring daily — they are reported to 

 us very often ; and we have no doubt that there 

 are at least a thousand of our readers, and per- 

 haps many thousands, who have often heard just 

 such statements as the one here given by our 

 correspondent. Keeping in view the character 

 of the chess weed, and its readiness to usurp the 

 place of an injured and destroyed crop, there 

 will not be the slighest difficulty in accounting in 

 several different ways, for its abundant appear- 

 ance, whenever poor, shrivelled or worthless seed 

 is sown ; or having started, has been destroyed 

 in any way. It is needless to spend time and 

 space upon the subject, and we are surprised 

 that after it has been so repeatedly and satisfac- 

 torily explained, just such cases as we have 

 heard one thousand times, should be so often re- 

 peated. — Country Gentleman. 



— It is probable that three-fourths of the far- 

 mers of this State are firm believers in the chess 

 theory, and we would recommend every slovenly 

 farmer to take stock in it, thus throwing from 

 his own shoulders the credit of bad farming. — Ed. 



To Preserve Stakes and Posts — We very 

 frequently hear inquiries for some process that 

 will prevent stakes and posts from rotting where 

 they are sunk in the ground. The following 

 gives a method at once simple and cheap, and 

 which is worth a trial : 



"Quite recently, while walking in the garden 

 with the Hon. J. W. Fairfield, Hudson, N. Y., he 

 called my attention to the small stakes which 

 supported the raspberry canes. The end in the 

 ground, as well as the patt above, was as sound 

 and bright as if lately made ; but he informed 

 me that they had been in constant use for twelve 

 years ! Said I, " Of course they are cyanized?" 

 "Yes," he replied, "and the process is so sim- 

 ple and cheap that it deserves to be universally 

 known, and it is simply this : One pound of blue 

 vitrei to twenty quarts of water. Dissolve the 

 vitrei with boiling water, then add the remain- 

 der. 



" The end of the stick is then dropped into the 

 solution, and left to stand four or five days ; for 

 shingles, three days will answer, and for posts 

 six inches square, ten days. Care is to be taken 

 that the saturation takes place in a metal vessel 

 or keyed box, for the reason that any barrel will 

 be shrunk by the operation so as to leak. In- 

 stead of expanding an old cask, as other liquids 

 do, this shrinks them. Chloride of zinc, I am 

 told, will answer the same purpose, but the 



