DOES WHEAl- TDEN TO CHESS? 39 



asked." Upoa taking up the last number of a 

 prominent agricultural journal I find an article on 

 this subject. 



In a recent report from the Chicago Board of 

 Trade I read that the price of wheat suddenly ad- 

 vanced, owing to reports "that the wheat in Mis- 

 souri and Kansas was turning to chess." The 

 Director of at least one of the State experiment 

 stations holds firmly to this belief. 



The causes assigned for the alleged transmutation 

 of wheat to chess are numerous and varied: sowing 

 shrunken seed; sowing in a certain time of the 

 moon; injury by the Hessian fly; eating off of the 

 plants by stock or by fowls; trampling by animals, 

 or injury by passing vehicles; drowning or freezing 

 out during winter; cutting off the "tap" root, in 

 imitation of heaving during winter. 



It is remarkable that in this country the belief 

 in transmutation is confined almost wholly to the 

 single case of the change of wheat into chess. In 

 Europe a belief in the change of various plants into 

 one another is common. In Sweden and in some 

 parts of England chess is believed to be degener- 

 ated rye. The common darnel (Lolium temulen- 

 turn) was formerly, at least, believed to be degen- 

 erated wheat by most farmers in the south of Eng- 

 land. The name " rye grass," by which this plant 

 is widely known, was given because of the belief in 



