Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/392

384 CHESHIRE CHESS were 3,645 horses, 7,162 milch cows, 3,211 working oxen, 9,171 other cattle, 30,237 sheep, and 3,493 swine. There were 3 manufactories of cotton goods, 16 of furniture, 4 of sashes, doors, and blinds, 38 of wooden ware, 17 of woollen goods, 58 saw mills, 12 tanneries, 6 currying establishments, 3 manufactories of agricultural implements, 7 of boxes, 10 of car- riages and wagons, 1 of glassware, 3 of iron castings, 7 of machinery, 1 of wrapping paper, and 4 of hardware. Capital, Keene. CHESHIRE, or Chester, a N. W. county of England, bounded N. by the Irish sea and the estuary of the Mersey; area, 1,105 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 561,131. It has a level surface, diver- sified with small lakes called meres, is well wooded, and watered by the Mersey, Dee, and Weever. It has a clayey or sandy soil; is one of the chief grazing districts of England, and noted for its excellent cheese. Salt, coal, lead, and copper are obtained in plenty, and there are several important manufacturing towns in which silk and cotton fabrics are made to great extent. It is traversed by nu- merous railways, among which are the North- western, Manchester, and Birmingham, the Chester and Crewe, the Cheshire and Midland, and the Stockport and Liverpool, and by the Grand Trunk and Bridgewater canals. Chesh- ire was the seat of the ancient Cornavii, and was made a county palatine by William the Conqueror. It remained almost independent of the crown until the time of Henry VIII., and its palatine courts subsisted to the reign of George IV. The county is divided into North Cheshire, Mid-Cheshire, and South Cheshire, each of which is entitled to two members of parliament. Capital, Chester. CI1ESNE, Andre da. See DUCHESNE. CHESNEY, Francis Rawdon, a British soldier, pioneer of the overland route to India, born at Bally rea, Ireland, in 1789, died Jan. 30, 1872. He entered the army in 1805, became captain in 1815, projected and conducted the Euphrates expedition in 1835-'6, and was brigadier gene- ral of artillery in China in 1843-'7, and in the south of Ireland 1848-'52. He became major general in 1855 and a full general in 1868. He wrote " Expedition for the Survey of the Eu- phrates and Tigris" (1860), "Observations on the Past and Present State of Firearms" (1852), " Russo-Turkish Campaigns of 1828-'9 " (1854), and " Narrative of the Euphrates Ex- pedition" (1868). CHESS, and Bronte Grass, common names of several species of the genus bromu*, belonging to the natural order graminece, or grasses, and tribe festuceee (fescue grass, &c.). In the wheat-raising districts of the United States the name chess is given particularly to B. secalinus, which is also called cheat, and, from its intro- ducer into this country as a grass of supposed value, Willard's bromus. Among the charac- teristics of the genus are : spikelets with 5 to many flowers, panicled ; glumes not quite equal, shorter than the flowers, mostly keeled, the lower with 1 to 5, the upper with 3 to 9 nerves; the flowers lanceolate, compressed; the paleae herbaceous, the lower keeled, 5-9-nerved, awned or bristle- pointed from below the tip ; the upper palea finally adherent to the grain ; stamens 3, styles attached below the apex of the ovary. The grasses of this genus are coarse, with large spikelets, generally some- what drooping when ripe. The species most known in Great Britain are the B. credits, straight, 2 to 3 ft. high ; B. asper, 4 to 5 ft. ; B. sterilis, 1 to 2 ft. ; and B. diandrw, rarely met. Of the B. secalinus, or chess proper, specific characters are: a spreading panicle, slightly drooping ; spikelets ovate, smooth, of a yellowish green tinge, holding 6 to 10 rather distinct flowers. The stems are erect, smooth, round, 2 to 8 ft. in height, bearing 4 or 5 leaves with striated sheaths ; joints 5, slightly hairy ; leaves flat, soft, linear, their points and mar- gins rough to the touch. This plant is annual, Chess (Bromus asper). flowering in June and July ; but in some cases in which it is cut sooner, or otherwise fails to produce seed, it survives, and matures the second year. Chess is a source of annoyance particularly in grain fields, most of all in those of wheat, since it is difficult to separate its seed, having nearly the size but without the plumpness of barley, from the cultivated grains. The notion of many farmers that wheat which has been injured by frost in the autumn or otherwise arrested in its growth is liable to turn to chess, and that of others that the chess grains themselves never grow, are of course wholly without foundation. Some years since the cultivation of chess as a valuable grass for cattle, like millet, lucerne, &c., was recom- mended by many persons in this country, prob- ably in ignorance of its really worthless quality, and high prices were charged for the seed ; whence doubtless arose its present wide diffu- sion. It has been supposed that by many who thus disseminated the plant it was mistaken