20 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 640. 
erished soils that the difficulty of sowing late enough to evade the fall 
attack and at the same time secure a growth sufficient to withstand 
the winter is encountered, and whatever can be done to obviate this 
difficulty will constitute a preventive measure. ; 
PROPER PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 
It matters little whether a soil has much or little fertility if that 
fertility is bound up in clods or hard lumps out of reach of the root- 
lets of the young plants. Early plowing and thorough working and 
compacting of the soil will eliminate the lumps and clods and produce 
a finely pulverized, compact, moisture-conserving seed bed, from 
which, as soon as rootlets are sent out from the seed kernel, the shoot 
will begin to draw nourishment. This will give vigor to the plants 
and thus enable them, by freely tillering, 
to outgrow a light attack of the fly that 
_ otherwise might prove serious. 
THE USE OCF GOOD SEED. 
When we come to consider the fact that 
the seed kernel contains, or should contain, 
sufficient nutriment to put out and sustain 
rootlets until these can begin to draw from 
the soil and thus support the stem, it will be 
seen at once that any deficiency in the seed 
will necessarily tend to weaken the plant at 
the very beginning of its existence. Thus 
good seed becomes the first requisite in se- 
ee ere curing the healthy, vigorous plant that is to 
site of the Hessian fly. Much en- be further strengthened and sustained by a 
ee ee well-prepared, fertile soil. It is very cleart 
then, that all shrunken, dwarfed, or otherwise imperfect kernels should * 
be cleaned out of the seed before it is sown and only the largest and 
most perfect retained. 
CONCLUSION. 
Methods for controlling the Hessian fly, the worst pest of the wheat 
field, in the fall-wheat-growing sections may be summarized as fol- 
lows: Sow the best of seed in thoroughly prepared, fertile soil after 
the major portion of the fall brood has made its appearance and 
passed out of existence, and, if possible, sow on ground not devoted 
to wheat the preceding year. 
In the spring-wheat section late seeding will not apply. It seems 
likely, on the contrary, that the earlier it is sown in spring the less it 
will suffer from the Hessian fly. But good seed and a well-prepared, 
fertile soil are as essential there as elsewhere. 
WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1915 
