THE HESSIAN FLY. 6/ 



118. In steeping or pickling wheat in strong chamber ley, a 

 practice both common and beneficial, the use of lime for drying 

 should by all means be avoided. Gypsum should be employed 

 instead ; but of all substances, finely powdered charcoal, as a 

 most efficacious absorbent of the ammonia of the urine, is to be 

 recommended. For further observations on the pickling or 

 steeping of wheat, as a method of preparing the seed for rapid 

 growth and immunity from smut, see paragraphs 231, 232, 232a. 



8th. Oats as a Decoy. — The oats being ploughed in after the 

 deposition of the egg — " if the fly will deposit its eggs upon 

 oats." This remedy is equivalent to late sowing. (^^ 



9th. Wheat as a Decoy. — If two or three acres across the 

 middle of a large field be sowed Avith wheat about the middle of 

 August, all the flies in the vicinity will be attracted to this point, 

 and there retained, so that it will be safe in ordinary seasons to 

 sow the remainder about the middle of September. Plough the 

 early sowed wheat under, and bury the unhatched eggs and mag- 

 gots. In years when "clouds" of Hessian flies migrate, it is 

 evident that this remedy would be of little avail, if the season 

 were at all late. The measure should receive a fair trial from 

 some intelligent wheat grower, in a district suffering under this 

 pest.(^) 



119. 10th. Deeply Covering the Seed. — '"Good as a subordi- 

 nate measure, but it falls far short of ranking as a primary 

 one." (3) I am much inclined to doubt the value of this reme- 

 dial measure ; late and shallow sowing, with a properly steeped 

 seed, and deep preparation of the soil, should go together. The 

 most trustworthy experiments have shown that deep sowing is 

 destructive to a very large majority of the seeds committed to 

 the ground. Out of 150 seeds of wheat sown at difl'erent 



(1) (2) (3) Fitoh. 



