GOUT fly; the HESSIAN FLY. 79 



furrows, or near Grass headlands* where the ground was 

 slieltered and damp; also where the land was exposed to a 

 sweeping wind. 



Looking at the very various situations and circumstances 

 in which " Gout " is notably to be found, I should conjecture 

 that the fact is that the fly comes out of the wild Grasses 

 along the headlands, and is specially attracted by the j)lants 

 in the moist situations, and as summer advances the sodden 

 ill-drained parts bake hard, and the plant cannot make way 

 under the infestation. Where attack recurs (as it sometimes 

 does) in any special locality, the state of drainage and con- 

 dition of the soil should be seen to. The maggot itself 

 cannot be acted upon by dressings whilst wrapped in the 

 growing shoot, but as the injury consists in the distorted and 

 retarded growth of the attacked ear or Corn-stem, it is 

 probable that artificial dressings applied in the early stage of 

 the summer attack would do much good. 



One hundredweight and a half of guano mixed with two 

 hundredweight of superphosphate, applied at the time of sowing, 

 when fears are entertained of attack, or one hundredweight 

 nitrate of soda mixed with two hundredweight of common 

 salt applied when the braird has come well up, or when the 

 crop is attacked, would be likely to prove beneficial. Salt 

 would check any tendency of the plant to run too much to 

 leafage, as a consequence of the action of the nitrate. The 

 application of salt at the rate of from three to four hundred- 

 weight per acre has been recommended. 



Drawing out and destroying the badly-injured plants, 

 which are especially to be observed along the water-furrows 

 and edges of crop near Grass headlands, is desirable in 

 theory as a means of prevention of future attack, but very 

 unhkely to be carried out in practice ; and likewise, where the 

 little stumpy-made black-and-yellow flies are found in the 

 great numbers in which they sometimes are observable at 

 threshing-time, they should be swept together and destroyed. 



The Hessian Fly. Cecidomyia destructor, Say. 



The year 1886 was memorable, agriculturally, for the 

 appearance of the Hessian Fly as a pest of the Wheat and 

 Barley in Great Britain. Whether the fly had been present 

 before 188G we cannot tell, but we can tell very certainly that 

 it was not known to have been present ; and also that its 



* See observations beginning " The winter attack," p. 77. It appears very 

 likely that the summer attack, ivitli us, comes from infested wild Grasses. — Ed. 



