WHEAT MIDGE. 93 



broad-sharing might be adopted, which would tend to break 

 up the surface soil. 



If the weeds, stubble, and grass-roots were collected and 

 burnt, this would help to destroy many of the maggots,* and 

 a large proportion of the remainder would be left on the top in 

 reach of birds. The above operations would be of service 

 by putting the maggot in unnatural circumstances, from 

 which a large number of experiments have shown it to be 

 particularly susceptible of injury. 



Another point of great importance is in regard to the grubs 

 harvested in the Corn. Enormous quantities of these may be 

 found in the chaff or the dust after threshing; and on 

 neglected farms or small holdings where the chaff is often 

 thrown in heaps to decay in out-of-the-way corners, this 

 treatment suits the Wheat Midges most admirably. The 

 following -June brings them out in clouds from the heaps to 

 infest every Wheat-held near, and this practice, therefore, of 

 spreading them is most objectionable. 



It is also bad in another way by greatly increasing the 

 opportunities of multiplication of the Midge. 



As it has been noted by careful observation that the Wheat 

 Midges seen in the Wheat-fields were all females, it may be 

 supposed that few, if any, males were there ; and from my 

 own observations of the Midges over the chaff-heaps, I am led 

 to think that pairing takes place immediately on the hatching 

 of these Midges from the pupa3, and thus these vast collections 

 are doubly hurtful. The heaps preserve the grubs through 

 the winter, and from the quantity (probably) of both sexes 

 that are hatched in one locality, the female flies to the fields 

 in a condition at once to lay fertile eggs. 



Where chaff is thrown away, it would be no greater loss to 

 destroy it thoroughly by burning with other rubbish, or, if 

 used as litter, it could be placed in the bottom of the yard, 

 where the trampling amongst the wet droppings of the cattle 

 would kill the maggots. Or again, the chaff might be placed 

 in the bottom of the dung-pit, where the maggots would be 

 effectually destroyed, and in this way there would be an 

 increase of good farm-manure, with a saving of much more 

 mischief from " Ked Maggot " next season than is generally 

 supposed. 



From experiments tried there seems some reason to think 

 that sowing the seed of Foxtail Grass with the maggot 

 amongst it is followed by attack, and from the winter state 

 of some of the maggots which I have seen this seems likely 



* Firing the stubbles, in the manner mentioned at p. 8G under tlie head of 

 " Hessian Fly," would help to get rid of many of the Ked Maggots which may 

 be found clinging about the lowest part of the stalk after the liarvest has been 

 cut. 



