EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 221 



Our correspondent, Mr. C. F. Gushing, reports that 'They get inside 

 of the leaves at the center which they eat up, thus preventing the 

 plants from heading." The beetle itself is a small, robust snout-beetle 

 of gray color; it is only one-eighth of an inch long and is broad propor- 

 tionately. The ground color is black with a dense coat of light-gray 

 hairs. Extending from the head to the wing-covers is a consi)icuous 

 furrow. 



REMEDIES. 



One hesitates to recommend leaving a mustard plant in a cultivated 

 field for even an hour, but when such plants are to be found and this 

 beetle is known to be present in dangerous numbers, it may be well to 

 delay pulling and burning the mustard in the near vicinity of cauli- 

 Howers and cabbages until the middle of June, at a time when the eggs 

 and larvae should he in the weeds here in Michigan. On no account 

 should wild mustard be allowed to seed, for it is so much worse than 

 the beetles that the remedy would be worse than the disease. Fortu- 

 nately the worst attacks occur while the plants are young and before 

 they commence to head; at such times a spray of paris-green, applied 

 in the ordinary way, will prove beneficial. 



Rotation suggets itself immediately as docs also the use of commer- 

 cial fertilizers for their tonic effect. 



WHEAT JOINT WORM. 



{Isosoma tritici.) 



SmaU white-grubs found in the wall of the stem of wheat usually near the lower joints. 

 They prevent proper ripening and filling of the grain. 



Next to the Hessian-fly, the joint-worm is the worst enemy of Michi- 

 gan wheat growers. Not alone is it destructive to the wheat itself, but 

 its work so resembles that of the Hessian-fly that there is constant con- 

 fusion between the tw^o species. This 

 is all the more unfortunate because 

 practices that favor the destruc- 

 tion of the one, may have no bene- 

 ficial effect on the other. The failure 

 of late sowing, for instance, when 

 used to control the joint-worm un- 

 der the supposition that it is the 

 fly, tends to throw suspicion 

 against the method when it would 

 really be of benefit in its own proper 

 place. The work of the joint-worm 



Fia. 19. Wheat Joint-worm, much enlarged, difl^ers Ouite matcriallv from that of 

 after Marlatt, Farmer's Biil. 132. Bureau of *J'ii*^i» qmit: "MLt,iiaiiy iium iiiaL ui 



Ent., u. s. Dept. of Agr. the Hcssian-fly, although the seat of 



the trouble is, in both cases, above 

 the joints. In the case of the joint-worm it may be seen above any or 



