IS WHEAT THE ORIGINAL OF CHESS ?—NOVEL METHOD OF WORKING BUTTER. 
369 
what I believe the lawyers term, a swift witness . It 
is a well-established principle, that one who proves 
too much, proves nothing at all. It is enough to 
show that wheat turns to chess; but to make two 
distinct and very dissimilar plants assume the 
same ultimate shape, is calculated to throw ad¬ 
ditional doubt on the whole theory. Does not 
the introduction of this third fact clearly prove, if 
it proves anything, that there was chess sown 
with the seed in every case ? 
But Mr. A. cites cases to show that wheat and 
chess have both originated from the same seed; 
and even that the same stem has produced one 
branch of wheat and another of chess. He was 
assured of these facts by Mr. Wright, who receiv¬ 
ed them from a third person. In the one case, the 
numerous fibrous roots might very readily have 
become so matted and interwoven, as to render it 
impossible to separate them ; and therefore this 
fact can not be regarded as by any means conclu¬ 
sive. The other case, if it ever existed in reality, 
would be much more to the point. But as it 
amounts only to hearsay evidence, as it does not 
appear that the specimen was submitted to the in¬ 
spection of others—and as it invests the same sub¬ 
ject with a double character, I trust Mr. A. will I 
not deem me unreasonably skeptical, if I withhold 
my belief in its existence, and class it with other 
marvellous accounts which have been published. 
If I am totally incredulous, it is not from any want 
of confidence in the veracity of Mr. A., or his in¬ 
formant, neither of whom saw the plant. 
Such, then, is the testimony on which Mr. Allen 
relies, to'-establish the convertibility of one plant 
to another. It is all, with a single exception, in¬ 
direct and circumstantial. In the administration 
of human laws, it could not be entitled to much 
weight—nor indeed to any, unless the witness tes¬ 
tified of his own knowledge : how little, then, can 
be claimed for it, when it is cited to abrogate a 
law of nature. 
It is a difficult matter to prove a negative, yet I 
think evidence may be adduced of a stronger char¬ 
acter against the doctrine of change, than Mr. A. 
has quoted to sustain it. I will describe one ex¬ 
periment, a detail of which may be found at length 
in the Farmers’ Register, vol.’l, p. 83. It is so 
well condensed by David Thomas, in the Genesee 
Farmer, that I will adopt his language. “ Thom¬ 
as Cocke, and Edmund Ruffin, of opposite opinions 
on the origin of chess, in company with Wm. J. 
Cocke, who was undecided, selected a clean piece 
of hard, wet ground, [which had been in corn, but 
not plowed later than June,] and marked it out in 
right lines, planting a few small and shrivelled 
grains of wheat, such as is supposed to turn into 
chess, at measured distances. A small spot ad¬ 
joining was strewed broadcast, with similar defec¬ 
tive seed. In the spring it was found that only a 
part of these seeds had germinated, so very im¬ 
perfect was their quality; and as a farther test, 
some of the plants were cut down within an inch 
of the ground. The parties say, 4 It was our de¬ 
sign in this experiment, to bring into operation 
every cause to which this change is usually as¬ 
cribed by different persons, namely: 1. Imperfect 
seed; 2. Thick sowing; 3. A wet soil; 4. A hard 
and unbroken soil; 5. Grazing or mowing.’ No 
transmutation, however, was effected by any or 
all of these five causes. At harvest it was all 
wheat, and not a stalk of chess in the whole 
patch.” 
I will also briefly state something of my own 
experience. A number of years ago, my farm was 
so infested by chess, that it became a serious 
pest. At length I determined to try the efficacy 
of clean seed—seed that I knew to be clean. I as¬ 
sisted in preparing it with my own hands, and de¬ 
sisted not as long as a grain of chess could be dis¬ 
covered. After pursuing this course for a few 
years, I had the gratification to perceive that the 
chess was so completely extirpated, that out of a 
crop of several hundred bushels of wheat, it would 
have been difficult to gather a handful of chess. 
Had Mr. Allen’s friends, from whom he derived 
most of his facts, pursue a similar course, I doubt 
not they would have experienced similar results. 
Will Mr. A. regard these cases as exceptions to a 
general rule ? I trust they may rather lead him 
to review the position he has occupied—for he 
manifests none of the spirit of a partisan—and that 
he may be induced to take a comprehensive view 
i of the subject, more becoming his enlightened 
mind, and his zeal for the cause of truth. Let me 
beseech him to divest himself of all hasty conclu¬ 
sions and undue bias, and satisfy himself by well- 
conducted experiments under his own guidance. 
It may be a work of some labor, but it will either 
confirm him in his belief or convince him of his 
error. I shall be willing to abide by the result. 
P. 
For the American Agriculturist 
NOVEL METHOD OF WORKING BUTTER. 
Montpelier , Vt., Nov. 22d, 1843. 
A very useful and ingenious mode of extracting 
whey from butter, was recently related to me by 
a gentleman who had resided many years in the 
grazitig districts of France; and he informed me 
that a similar apparatus is at present in successful 
operation, near by here, in this state, although I 
have not yet seen it. He described it in a man¬ 
ner that could not fail to be understood to any 
farmer in the Union. 
The machine, he represented, as made of wood, 
in form not much unlike a grindstone, closely fitted 
into a trough, leaving a space between the stone 
and bottom of the trough not exceeding a sixteenth 
of an inch in thickness. The trough is first filled 
with clean water saturated with salt, one end of 
which is crowded full of the newly-churned but¬ 
ter. Then the stone is put in motion by means 
of the crank or otherwise, and the butter is drawn 
beneath it, and comes out at the other end of the 
trough in thin sheets, not more than one sixteenth 
of an inch in thickness, almost entirely freed from 
the whey, and for common use requires no further 
salting. The brine thus prepared, has another 
very important office to perform. It imbibes, by 
chemical affinity, all the whey with which it comes 
in contact, and leaves the butter by itself. 
Although this apparatus is extremely rude and 
