III. 



DOES WHEAT TUEN TO CHESS y 



"And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed 

 after his Icind."— Genesis 1 12. 



"VTO popular error has been more generally held in 

 Jjj this country than that wheat will turn to chess. 

 No other subject has, during the past fifty years, 

 been more actively discussed in the agricultural 

 press. There are signs, however, that interest in 

 the question is dying out, which probably means 

 that the better educated farmers have ceased to be- 

 lieve in the transmutation theory. 



None of the leading agricultural periodicals now 

 advocate this theory, and some of them decline to 

 discuss it any longer. Nevertheless, the subject is 

 by no means out of date. There is doubtless 

 hardly a rural neighborhood in which one or more 

 intelligent and successful, if not in all respects well 

 informed, farmers do not hold to this belief. A 

 well known botanist says, " Of all the numerous 

 farmers' institutes which I have attended, scarcely 

 one has adjourned without bringing up this sub- 

 ject. No other question has been so frequently 



(38) 



