1850. 
275 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
£l)t .farmer's Notebook. 
Seed Wheat that will not “ turn to Chess.” 
Eds. Cultivator— As the time for sowing-wheat 
is at hand, and perfectly clean seed is admitted by 
all to be very desirable, I deem it seasonable to state 
some facts and observations, and on them to predi¬ 
cate some advice for the attainment of that desid¬ 
eratum. I must premise, however, that early in life 
I embraced as a Scriptural truth, the notion that 
“what a man soweth that shall he also reap.’*' My 
father was an old-fashioned orthodox farmer, who 
believed and taught that this parable was based on 
an ordinance of Heaven, and was a real fact , and 
literally true with respect to grain, and his works 
were in accordance with his faith. He therefore 
took uncommon pains to obtain pure seed. In con¬ 
sequence, he -was never troubled with chess, while 
his neighbors who believed that “wheat will turn to 
chess,” and therefore “it is of no use of being so 
particular,” about the seed, acted in accordance 
with their faith, and were, (unavoidably, as they 
supposed,) much annoyed with chess. 
In the fall of 1841, I was compelled to plow a 
field of oat stubble that had been seeded down, but 
had failed in consequence of severe drouth. I 
sowed it with rye, except about an acre near the 
barn, which I concluded to try wheat. I was 
told a neighbor was threshing all his wheat for 
seed, on account of its being perfectly clean. Two 
bushels of it was obtained at a price much above 
the market, on account of its being, (as he, in all 
sincerity expressed it,) 11 perfectly clean—nothing 
but wheat .” On examination, however, smut, 
cockle, and chess were discovered to such an amount 
as to warrant an attempt at purification before sow¬ 
ing. Over five quarts of smut, cockle and chess 
was first picked and sifted out; a large wash tub 
full of strong brine was then made, and the wheat, 
(about a peck at a time,) stirred in, which brought 
to the surface the rest of the smut and chess, which 
were skimmed off- but a few grains of cockle and 
rye remained inseparable in the wheat. The wheat 
was then scooped out on a floor to drain off, and 
about a peck of slacked lime mixed with it, by re¬ 
peatedly scooping it over, so as to coat the surface 
of the grains with the lime. I omitted to state that 
on measuring the wheat after the purifying process, 
it had lost by that operation, in smut, chess, cockle , 
shrunk wheat, and other extraneous matters, nearly 
a peck, or one-eighth, a fair sample, I presume, of 
most of the “clean wheat” that is sowed and turns 
to chess. 
It was sowed on the 8th of September, and with 
favorable weather attained such a growth that I 
turned several calves on it to eat it down. An old 
friend, a farmer of great experience, visited me at 
the time the calves were on it, and gave a lecture on 
“wheat turning to chess,” declaring that there 
was nothing so certain to produce that result, as 
calves feeding on it; “never knew it to fail,” and 
seeing my apparent indifference to his admonitions, 
he expressed, with much sympathy, his regret for 
the loss he was sure I would sustain, as the penalty 
for my rashness in having such a “beautiful piece 
of wheat all turned into chess.” 
The wheat wintered well, excepting a patch near 
the barn, from which the snow had been drifted, 
and where it had been fed down by the fowls so close 
that nothing was to be seen of it, but with warm 
weather, it too became green, but it was doubtful 
whether it was wheat or grass. When the wheat 
headed out, it looked so promising that I had the 
vanity to think of competition at the County Fair. 
To this end I requested a surveyor, who is also one 
of our best farmers, to call and measure the ground. 
He observed the part fed off by the fowls, had not 
yet headed out, and inquired into the cause, and 
when told, he too remarked, “it will probably be 
all chess,” and proposed to leave it out of the 
measurement on that account. Here was another 
almost certain cause of transmutation, and more¬ 
over another—the alternate freezing and thaw-ing 
during its exposure through the winter and spring. 
At last the heads appeared,and although thrice doom¬ 
ed to be chess, it turned out to be all wheat, but too 
late to mature the grain. The crop was harvested 
while the grain was soft. The yield was about 28 
bushels, weighing 62£ lbs. to the bushel—and took 
the first premium at the Rensselaer County Fair in 
1842. The rye and cockle were pulled before ripen* 
ing, and it was so free from chess and smut that the 
whole was sold for seed at 25 cents above the market 
price—except six bushels which I sowed myself, 
and the product of which was about 35 bushels to 
the acre, equally good and clean, and took the sec¬ 
ond premium in 1843. The whole of this, too, was 
sold for seed at 18$ cents above the market price, 
and warranted not to “turn to chess ” if sown on 
clean land, and I never heard any complaint of its 
doing so. 
Another neighbor who had a naked fallow in 1841, 
on virgin soil, prepared with uncommon care, 
having dug out all the stumps at great expense, also 
sowed 12 bushels of the “perfectly clean, nothing 
but wheat” seed, without any preparation, and 
although it grew very stout and ripened well, it was 
so fowl as to be scarcely merchantable. 
It is also a fact of very general observation, that 
in this region wheat grown for a succession of 
years on the same soil diminishes in product and 
becomes more foul, or as it is usually expressed, 
becomes more and more liable to “turn to chess.” 
The rationale is this; the soil becomes after every 
wheat crop less genial to the growth of the same 
grain, and in proportion as it does so, it favours 
the growth of chess—so that the latter will, in a 
succession of years, supplant the wheat. 
From the foregoing facts and observations, the 
conclusion is, 
1st—That what is generally called perfectly 
clean seed, does, in fact, contain chess and other 
foul seed. 
2nd—That any condition of the soil or season 
which is unfavorable to the wheat crop, favours the 
growth and productiveness of chess, and therefore 
it supplants the wheat. 
3d—That in proportion as the soil contains the 
elements which constitute a “wheat soil,” and it is 
free from chess and other foul seed, as well as the 
wheat that is sown, in that same proportion will the 
crop be free from chess and other foul seeds. 
4th-—That perfectly clean seed is a desideratum, 
to be obtained only by the following method: 
Glean a wheat field by hand, picking up each ear 
separately. Thresh the gleanings upon a floor 
where no other grain is threshed, or still better rub 
them out by hand ; sow the grain on a clean fallow 
or clean sod, without manure, unless it be lime or 
ashes, and the product will be pure wheat. If this 
process is thought to be “too particular,” the 
sifting, picking, brining and liming process above 
described may be substituted with considerable hope 
of success, if it be faithfully executed. But the 
gleaning is the most certain ; a man or a boy will 
easily glean a peck in half a day, which if sown on 
