GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 57 
Means of control 
Sow clean seed. Chess is smaller and lighter than wheat, and 
care in cleaning should remove it. But if it is suspected that a few 
seeds remain, stir the wheat in a barrel of water just before sowing ; 
the Chess will rise to the top. If the grain is treated with formalin 
for the purpose of destroying suspected spores of smut, the Chess 
may be removed at the same time. When the weed makes a first 
appearance in clean soil, under no circumstances let it be fouled for 
years by allowing the Chess to ripen and scatter its seeds. Hand- 
pulling and burning is worth while in such an instance, even though 
the quantity be so large as to make the task rather strenuous. 
Stubbles where seeds have matured should have surface cultivation 
after harvest, in order to cause them to germinate ; 
then plow them under, and put no more grain qn 
that land until a hoed crop of some kind needing 
very thorough tillage has had a place in the 
rotation. 
SOFT CHESS 
Bromus hordedceus, L. 
Introduced. Annual or winter annual. Propa- 
gates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to July. 
Seed-time: July to August. 
Range: Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward 
to the Mississippi River. Not common, but 
“becoming frequent.” 
Habitat: Fields and waste places. 
Soft Chess differs from Cheat in being smaller, 
the culms one to two feet tall, erect, slender, 
simple. The whole plant is softly hairy, while 
Cheat is smooth. Panicle erect and rather com- 
pact instead of open and drooping, the spikelets 
having shorter pedicels; these are six- to ten- 
seeded, the glumes covered with soft appressed 
hairs, the lemma, tipped with an awn about as ee es 
long as itself, and straight. (Fig. 27.) Chess (Bromus 
It should be fought in the same manner as the hordeaceus). x 4. 
St 
