I? 
THIRD 
Yol. II. 
€n Smjrcntii tjii Inil miMliE 3Hiitlr. 
ALBANY, SEPT., 1854. 
SERIES. 
No. IX. 
Wheat and Chess. 
The destruction of the present crop of wheat by win¬ 
ter-killing, has been greater than has occurred for many 
years; and we have no doubt, as a consequence, we 
shall hear of numerous cases of the transmutation of 
wheat to chess, so generally believed to result from 
winter-killing. Communications on this subject have 
already begun to come in, some by way of inquiry, and 
some to explain the nature of the change which takes 
place when one plant becomes the other. We select 
the two first received of each of these, for the purpose 
of giving as requested, our views on the subject. 
The first is from a correspondent at Waterville, N. 
Y. He describes a very promising field of wheat, as 
it appeared on the approach of the last winter, believ¬ 
ed to be from very clean seed, but which was'almost 
totally destroyed. The field remained untouched, and 
is now covered with a growth of straw sufficient for the 
growth of a crop of wheat of sixteen to twenty bushels 
to the acre, and seven-eighths of this is chess .” Our 
correspondent requests an explanation. 
Now, it would require a person possessing more of 
the ability of seeing a long way through the dark, 
than any clairvoyant, to know so far off as we are, all 
that had .taken place in this field, and where the seed 
of the chess came from. But as we have seen many 
such cases with quite similar results ) where the chess 
plants very evidently sprang from chess seeds, we can 
offer an explanation of the manner in which this might 
have*occurred. 
Chess is a most singular plant. 1. The seed is incon¬ 
spicuous, hnd we have found plenty of it in wheat, 
pronounced by men who prided themselves on their 
keen eye.s, as perfectly clean. 2. The seed is very 
hardy, and will escape destruction, and grow, when 
all other grains are destroyed. 3. It accommodates 
itself wonderfully to circumstances; it will grow un¬ 
obtrusively and unseen in a timothy meadow, and ripen 
and drop its seed from plants not over two or three 
inches high, as We have had occasion to observe; and 
in this way secretly perpetuate its kind and fill the soil 
with its grains. These same minute and unseen plants, 
if they had had plenty of room and mellow soil, would 
have'sprung up, formed a large stool, thrown up nume¬ 
rous stalks, and borne each three to five thousand 
grains,—enough to seed a whole acre. 4. Hence, when 
wheat winter-kills, the plants which otherwise would 
have been kept down and never seen, spring up and 
spread prodigiously, and cover the whole ground with 
their rampant growth. 5. A portion of a field has 
been killed, and, as was supposed, turned all to chessy* 
another portion escaped, and no chess was observed ; 
yet by measuring off a square rod of each, and ex¬ 
amining with great care and Minuteness, it was found 
there were as many chess plants of diminutive size 
among the good( wheat, as there were of luxuriant 
vigor on the destroyed portion ; the large plants, which 
had plenty of room to grow, yielding nearly a thou¬ 
sand times as much seed as the other. This might 
have been the case with the crop our correspondent 
mentions; but there are sev- .?al ways in which chess 
seed is spread artificially, which farmers but little 
suspect • and a few grains of these will multiply in 
one season to a heavy seeding of the ground. Eoul 
ground, in the same way, may produce a similar re¬ 
sult ; or two or three of these causes may operate to¬ 
gether. 
It is often surprising and unaccountable how weeds 
will spring up and cover the ground, without our know¬ 
ing how the land had been seeded with them. We 
have kno^vn a meadow that had lain some twenty 
years or nffire, to yield a dense growth of foxtail grass 
as soon a& the sod was inverted ; and in another case 
an old pasture on being plowed, was covered with a 
heavy crop of pig-weeds. It would have been very 
absurd, because we could not tell where the seed came 
from, *to have asserted that the timothy had been 
changed in one case to foxtail, and in the other to pig-N 
weed. ^ 
The different causes we have already mentioned, 
have been found amply sufficient, when taken together 
or separately, to explain all the supposed instances of 
transmutation that have come under our notice. But, 
supposing there are cases very difficult to explain ; this 
difficulty cannot be got over by admitting a still great¬ 
er difficulty,—nay, an utter impossibility. Seeds, when 
planted, often produce new varieties , but never new 
species. Seedlings never can and never have crossed 
the specific boundary. But wheat and chess are not 
only separate species, but they belong to entirely dif¬ 
ferent genera ; and it would be as impossible for the 
