l08 CORN AND GRASS. 



pondents in that j^ear as very severe ; sometimes every plant 

 being destroyed for yards together, or a complete failure in 

 various places, and in the Fens " hundreds of acres being 

 eaten off"; also that near Warrington, "for several miles 

 around, both in Cheshire and Lancashire, the Wheat-crops in 

 some fields have been greatly damaged, in some entirely 

 destroyed." 



Prevention and Eemedies. — In continental observations 

 the Wheat-bulb maggot is given as attacking Eye ; otherwise 

 Wheat appears to be the only crop infested by it ; but the only 

 method of prevention of attack which appears to be known of 

 at present is not to sow Wheat on land of which the preceding 

 summer conditions have been observed to be specially followed 

 by this kind of maggot attack, though ichy we do not yet 

 know. 



It is very remarkable that from the beginning of observation 

 of maggot in the young Wheat-plant, about 1880, before the 

 attack had been certainly identified, as well as since, where we 

 have been quite certain of the pest, the attack has been 

 specially found to fohow on fallow. In a report given me by 

 Mr. Parlour, of Middle Farm, Dalton-on-Tees, near Darling- 

 ton, in 1888, he mentioned, " I have examined several fields 

 in the district, and find that almost all fallow fields have suffered 

 more or less.'' "In no case, so far as I can find out, has any 

 Wheat been attacked where the land was cropped last 

 summer." In 1882 Mr. W. Creese, writing from Teddington, 

 near Tewkesbury, regarding this attack (of which specimens 

 had then been trustworthily identified), observed that it 

 attacked plants on land that had been fallowed in the previous 

 summer, but did not appear on land ploughed for the first 

 time in the autumn ; also that it leaves a belt of four or five 

 yards near the edge untouched. In 1881 Mr. B. Brown, of 

 Beard's End, near Stevenage, wrote regarding a maggot 

 infestation which appeared to be similar to that under con- 

 sideration, that it attacked some portion of his Wheat there, 

 sown after dead fallow, and its ravages were so great that he 

 discontinued planting Wheat after fallow. The Wheat looked 

 well until after Christmas, but began to die off in the spring 

 months. 



The special reports of 1888 and 1889 mention the attack as 

 being most commonly observed after fallow, and after Turnips 

 or Swedes, or where a ijortioii of these hace failed, or sometimes 

 after Potatoes where they have been raised before they are ripe, 

 or raised early, or had thin amount of leafage. 



The above is the only clue that we appear to have at present 

 to prevention. It appears very possible that Couch Grass or 



