214 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



1-2 EDWARD VI!., A. 1902 



green, a good deep green, where the heads of wheat fell on them, and on the decks these 

 insects were creeping around almost as thick as they conld. I did not cut any more 

 wheat for about four or five days, and then the majority of them were gone. Would 

 burning the stubble be of any benefit ? Quite a few farmers in this section have bad 

 their wheat destroyed in the same way as mine, and some of them think it is frosted, 

 but, instead of being blackened like frosted wheat, it is a very light colour like fall 

 wheat.' — J. J. W. Bell. 



' Pincher Creek, Alta. — Kindly inform me what kind of a creature is inclosed in 

 box herewith. It is found in large masses on the binder after cutting a field of oat3 

 cowed on new breaking this spring.' — A. E. Cox. 



Wheat-stem maggot (Meromyza americana, Fitch). — The fly of the Wheat-stem 

 Maggot is a very common insect all across the prairies, and more or less of the con- 

 spicuous ' white heads' due to the attacks of the maggots may nearly always be seen 

 in any field of wheat. In the enormous crops of the past season these attacks were 

 seldom noticed by wheat growers, but a few farmers sent in specimens or injured 

 stems with inquiries as to the cause. Some of them were from Pilot Mound, in Mani- 

 toba, and from Whitewood, Indian Head, Grenfell and Sumner, in the North-west 

 Territories. 



THE HESSIAN FLY 

 (Cccidomyia "destructor, Say). 



The ravages of the Hessian Fly in the fall wheat crop of Ontario, sown in 1900 

 and the spring wheat of 1901, have been more extensive than for many years. Barley 



has also suffered seriously in a few places 

 reported from, as well as doubtless in many 

 others from which no reports have been re- 

 ceived. In a bulletin issued in August last 

 by Prof. Wm. Lochhead, of the Ontario 

 Agricultural College — one of the most com- 

 plete, concise and useful bulletins upon an 

 entomological subject which has ever ap- 

 peared in Canada — the total loss caused by 



the Hessian Fly in the province of Ontario 

 Fig. 1.— The Hessian Fly— enlarged and . ^ nM .,, . .. . , , » .. , , 



natural size. in 1901 will not, it is stated, fall below 



$2,500,000. This estimate, I believe, is 

 placed too low, as recent reports show that the infestation of spring wheat was much 

 wider spread than was known at the time the above statement was written. In the 

 Ontario Crop Report for November, 1901, the fall wheat crop is stated to be ' a good 

 deal below the average from various causes. In the western counties the ravages of 

 the Hessian Fly were great and much of the surviving grain was light in weight on 

 account of the extreme heat and drought of June and July. llcports from the 

 eastern section — which is free from the Hessian Fly — are somewhat more favour- 

 able, especially as regards the Ottawa valley, and East Midland counties, where the 

 crop was a fair one, the principal causes of injury being the excessive early rains and 

 the drought before harvest, owing to which much of the grain is shrunken.' Although 

 in the main the above statement as to the Ottawa valley is correct, all crops of the small 

 amount of fall wheat which is grown in the Ottawa district, were not altogether free 

 from the Hessian Fly, and spring wheat was very badly attacked in some places. Some 

 varieties on the experimental plots at the Central Experimental Farm were injured 

 to the amount of 40 per cent. No mention of Hessian Fly was made this year by cor- 

 respondents in the Maritime Provinces, and very few reports of injury have been 

 received from Manitoba where it was so very destructive in 1899. 



