PAUL Alt MERINOS.—NO. IV. 
141 
wheat-growers in this country, I will not say a ma¬ 
jority of the whole, as this, although it may 
be true, is not a fact within my knowledge, but I 
may safely say a large majority of the west; men 
of intelligence, careful and close observers, of 
sound judgment, slow to form opinions, perfectly 
independent of popular prejudice, and arriving at 
conclusions exclusively from their own observations 
and their own reasoning therefrom ; thousands of 
such men entertain the belief, that under a variety 
of circumstances, adverse to the successful growth 
of wheat; such as growing on wet or marshy lands, 
or where a scanty nourishment was afforded ; 
when thrown out by frost in winter, or eaten off 
too closely by animals, wheat has turned into 
chess. They believe it; first, because they have 
seen this effect in countless instances, where they 
had every reason to believe that not a panicle of 
chess existed in the ground affording the crop, or 
was sown in the seed ; second, because they think 
they have found (and no proof hitherto adduced is 
sufficient to convince them to the contrary) wheat 
and chess growing on stalks from the same stool, 
having a common root; on different heads from a 
common stalk; and kernels of each from the same 
head. It is readily conceded, that these apparent 
proofs do not carry the highest—absolute evidence 
with them; for with the decided hostility existing 
against this opinion,-they ought to have carried the 
matter to a further trial, and not content them¬ 
selves with the evidence thus obtained. Succes¬ 
sive plantings from the different products, thus 
casually obtained, carried through several genera¬ 
tions, under every variety of circumstance, would 
put the matter on a more certain and incontrover¬ 
tible basis. 
It is for the conclusive and authoritative set¬ 
tlement of such, and an infinite number of other 
inquiries, that we need a national agricultural 
college , where competent men can be placed, 
under every advantage for arriving at long-tried, 
well-authenticated, definite results, such as no pri¬ 
vate gentleman can afford either the time or ex¬ 
pense of establishing. These experiments ought 
to be made for a succession of years with chess, 
highly cultivated; wheat badly cultivated; the 
careful cultivation of wheat and what is sup¬ 
posed to be chess growing from the same root, or 
stalk, or even head; wheat-blossoms fecundated 
with the pollen from chess, and chess from wheat, 
&c., &c. Results, from a series of such exper¬ 
iments, perfectly well guarded, would be entitled 
to universal acceptance and general belief. Until 
such are exhibited, I must still claim to rank 
among the heretics. 
An approximation toward harmonizing the rad¬ 
ical difference between spike-headed and panicle- 
bearing plants, which “P.” assumes as a funda¬ 
mentally established principle in botany, is afforded 
in the seven-headed wheat described in the II. Vol¬ 
ume of the American Agriculturist, by Dr. Lyman. 
Varieties of this wheat have for some years been 
grown in this vicinity, in which this difference is 
still more lessened, as from the same seed, there 
is a great diversity of product, both in the form 
and product of heads, the latter varying from 3 to 
15 heads on a single stalk. Let me suggest to 
“P.” that “there are more things in heaven and 
earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” 
Agriculturists, botanists, or philosophers, can not 
prove from any conclusive experiments hitherto 
made on this subject, that the advocates of the 
convertibility of wheat into chess are wrong. We 
show good reason for occupying our present posi 
tion. Will they be kind enough to afford us un¬ 
questionable evidences of its untenableness, before 
they call upon us to abandon it ? I have pointed 
out the way in which it can be done, if it can be 
done at all, by any one having the means for doing 
it. When fairly and fully subjected to this test , 
I presume every gentleman of candor and intelli¬ 
gence, will be ready to shape his opinions in ac¬ 
cordance with it. 
“A Cayuga Farmer” in a contemporary journal, 
laments over the injury to good farming, my 
“ heresy” will produce. He will banish his fears 
when he refers again to the article, and finds that 
bad farming (sowing wheat in unsuitable places 
and under adverse circumstances) is the sole al¬ 
leged cause of transmutation. As it is facts alone 
we want on this subject, which it appears no one 
has to offer of a character sufficiently conclusive 
to convince his opponents, I must, with what is 
above briefly stated, take a final leave of the sub¬ 
ject. R. L. Allen. 
Buffalo , March 10, 1844. 
We doubt whether the further discussion of this 
matter in our columns, will prove interesting to 
the majority of our readers, and unless some new 
and important facts can be adduced to sustain the 
arguments pro or con, we decline any further ad¬ 
mission to articles on this subject. It is well 
known to most of our friends that we are no be¬ 
lievers in the doctrine of transmutation, and we 
should demand the most irrefragable evidence to 
convince us that wheat, rye, or oats, can be chan¬ 
ged to chess. 
PAULAR MERINOS.—No. IV. 
In my last, I promised that you should soon 
hear from me again, in relation to the miscalled 
or spurious Paular sheep, of Messrs. Jewett, Avery, 
and others. 
That promise, I will now redeem. You tell me 
that I have already, by my freedom of speech, and 
the boldness of my positions and opinions, offended 
many, and that 1 may chance^ to find ere long, 
that I have stirred up a hornet’s nest, abom my 
ears. Be it so. Though at first I felt a natural 
timidity and shrinking, at the idea of being drawn 
into an unpleasant public controversy, and would 
most gladly have avoided it; yet now that I am 
at home again, in winter quarters, and have, 
(as the saying is,) “ got my hand in” a little, I can 
only say that if they want “ a good set to” or for 
that matter, a winter’s campaign, let them now 
come on. In the poet’s words, “ come one, come 
all.” “ Lay on Macduff, and damned be he who 
first cries, hold, enough.” 
But who are these threatening and truculent 
