300 
IS CHESS THE ORIGINAL OF WHEAT ? 
ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
IS CHESS THE ORIGINAL OF WHEAT? 
Buffalo , November 2,1843. 
No. VIII., p. 240, of the American Agricultu¬ 
rist contains a letter dated Virginia, August 10, and 
signed P., which, from some internal evidence, in¬ 
dicates an origin from one able and enlightened, 
and now filling a responsible post in the great 
cause of American agriculture; and though it may 
be our lot, for the time being, to differ on some 
points in this important and comprehensive pursuit, 
yet it may be fairly assumed that we agree in 
wishing to arrive at truth , wherever that may lie. 
He will excuse me for adding it would have been 
more pleasant and satisfactory to the public, had 
he added his name to the communication. But 
allow me in the first place, to correct a prelimin¬ 
ary mistake he has fallen into, in attributing the 
authorship of “ Ulmus” to me, the credit of which, 
whatever it may be, being due to Mr. L. F. Allen, 
and not to me, who entered the agricultural field 
some years subsequent to the publications alluded 
to. 
It is a source of no little regret, to find so worthy 
a correspondent as P. falling into some of the com¬ 
mon errors of a controversialist, under which genus 
it is the least of my ambition to be classed. It 
partakes rather too much of the Swift and War- 
burton school, to be in decidedly good taste. I 
“undertake to make suggestions, which should 
not have been expected from an enlightened man 
in this enlightened dayand I am “ Rip Van 
Winkle sleeping through the chess controversy,” 
which resulted in the “ triumphant ” (?) overthrow 
of this “deeply-rooted and popular error;” and if 
I had not thus slept I “ would have scarcely ven¬ 
tured to evoke the aid of metamorphosis, long 
since exploded and banished to the dim twilight 
of agricultural knowledge, nor remained ignorant 
of the utter discomfiture of those who then thought 
as I do now.” 
With all deference to the responsible station 
and well-known ability of P., I must beg leave to 
say, that I see no relevancy to the subject in these 
and kindred remarks. It is talking about it, and 
about it, but not to the matter in issue. I made a 
suggestion it is true, (not “ suggestions ,”) that 
chess is the original of wheat, but I do not attempt 
to substantiate it, for nothing would satisfy even 
myself of its correctness, short of absolute demon¬ 
stration, which can only be afforded by actual ex¬ 
periment, for which, years may be required. But 
P. neither overthrows this single suggestion, nor 
even renders it less probable than it was before. 
But to the main subject of his article. I regret 
he should have confined himself to asserting sim¬ 
ply the discomfiture of one of the parties belliger¬ 
ent, without condescending to inform us ignoramus¬ 
es in what particular way, and on what grounds 
we have been overthrown. I must assert again 
my ignorance of the chess controversy, nay more, 
my utter repugnance to wade through pages and 
folios for ideas, which, after all, may exist rather 
in the imagination of the writers and their too 
credulous readers, than in the volumes supposes 
to be enriched by them. I should as soon think 
of looking over the tomes of monkish superstition, 
containing the evidence on which Galileo was 
confuted, in his novel and heretical ideas that the 
world turned on its axis. But this I will stipulate 
with P. to do: I will carefully read, and weigh 
every idea going to show the inconvertibility of 
wheat into chess, if collected and condensed by P. 
into a tangible, comprehensive, and readable form. 
But he must be sure they are ideas going directly 
to establish his position, not round-about and ir¬ 
relevant assertions that prove nothing to the pur¬ 
pose. As it is my only desire to arrive at the truth 
of this matter in the shortest possible way, with¬ 
out at all permitting myself to be awed or hamper¬ 
ed by commanding names or authority, when “ a 
greater than Solomon” is at hand to settle the 
principle, I mean nature herself \ I shall confine 
what I have to say on this subject to the state¬ 
ment of a few simple facts. 
A neighbor of mine had a field of fine wheat 
apparently entirely free from chess, except by the 
side of one of the fences, which was nearly all 
chess. On inquiry how this difference occurred, 
he said the whole field had been sown with the 
same seed precisely, but that his flock of geese had 
got into the field while the plants were young , and 
had eaten off and partially pulled up the wheat , 
and the consequence was it had turned into chess. 
So much for fact No. 1. 
Fact No. 2. A friend in Ohio had a large wheat 
field, through the middle of which, a low swale 
of marshy, wet land extended. Over all this low 
ground, chess was, with some slight exception, 
the only crop, while all besides was fine, plump 
wheat. His explanation of this result was, that 
all the field was sown with the same seed , broad¬ 
cast, without discrimination, and that owing to 
the low part of the field being saturated with wa¬ 
ter when the frost set in, the ground had been 
thrown up, the roots of the wheat laid bare, and 
the scanty nutriment they had been able to get , 
had produced chess in the place of wheat. 
Fact No. 3. I saw a luxuriant field of oats at 
Manitouwoc, Wisconsin, this season, which had 
been cleared last fall, and was then surrounded 
with the original forest, over which no cultivated 
crops had ever before been sown. The whole 
field looked remarkably fine, as did all the crops 
in that region, and I discovered no chess in any 
part of the field except on one edge. This had 
been scratched over with the harrow for about two 
feet in width, and the ground was very hard, 
while all the remainder of the lot had been well 
plowed. On this strip, affording a scanty subsis¬ 
tence to the seed, every particle of the grain was 
chess. The owner assured me the seed was alike 
over the whole field. 
Fact No. 4. Mr. Wright, Editor of the Prairie 
Farmer, told me while in Chicago in July last, he 
had the testimony of persons of unquestionable 
veracity, that they had discovered stalks both of 
wheat and chess growing out of the same stool, 
and originating from the same seed, the most care¬ 
ful washing and examination failing to show two 
separate roots. 
