826 



Rural School Leaflet. 



pruiicd, and sprayed. It will also teach that unless these operations 

 are conducted on the fruit farm the apples will not be first-class. 



Ask the children to compare the various specimens of the same variety ; 

 for example, the Baldwins grown on the home farm of one of the children 

 with those grown on another farmi in a different part of the neighbor- 

 hood. This will bring out the lesson that there is variation in the same 

 variety. This variation may be due to cultural methods, or it may 

 be due to the inheritance or the pedigree of the stock. A difference 

 in the inheritance or pedigree of the stock will teach that buds or scions 

 from which commercial orchards are started should be chosen from 

 trees which not only bear well but which bear the best fruit of that 

 variety. Most commercial orchards at the present time are being set 

 with good, strong, healthy trees from the nursery row, and then top- 

 worked to the desired varieties with properly chosen scions. 



THE HOUSE-FLY 



Alex. D. MacGillivray 



The house-fly, found in all the warmer parts of the world, is a nuisance 

 and a pest wherever it occurs. It is one of the few species of insects 

 that can be identified with certainty by those who have not studied 

 insects carefully. There are many kinds of flies that closely resemble 

 the house-fly in size and general appearance. Few of these frequent 

 the house, however, and even then only a few individuals occur at one 

 time. Over ninety-eight per cent of the flies found in dwellings are of 

 one kind. There is only one species, and it is, therefore, worthy of the 

 popular name of house-fly. Its habits deserve careful consideration. 



The house-fly is black in 

 color, with five parallel, more 

 or less distinct grayish bands 

 on the back between the 

 wings. There are two wings. 

 The body and legs are covered 

 with numerous short, stiff hairs 

 or bristles. New individuals 

 are produced only during the 

 summer season. They proba- 



FiG. ^.—House-fiy.-{a) odult, line at left shows ^^^ ^'^^ ^^^"^ ^ ^^^ ^^^^ to 

 natural size; (b) eggs; (c) larva or maggot; two or three weeks. On the 

 (d) puparium; all enlarged (Howard) approach of winter they be- 



come numbed with the cold and crawl into a crack or crevice or 

 under rubbish, where they can find comparative warmth and protec- 



