50 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



9-10 EDWARD VII., A. 1910 



20, 22 and 23. Prof. Bethune reports that this insect was present in 1908 in injurious 

 numbers, affecting winter wheat, in the counties of Norfolk, Brant and Essex in the 

 Niagara district. The postponement of the time of seeding of fall wheat, until towards 

 the end of September, has proved to be an important preventive remedy. By that 

 time the flies of the second brood will have emerged and be dead. Care should be 

 taken, of course, to prepare the land as well as possible for the crop, and it will also 

 be a good plan to sow strips of wheat in August, in periods of excessive abundance, 

 which should be ploughed under before the middle of September to kill all the con- 

 tained larvae. Land in which infested wheat has been growing should be put into 

 another crop the following year. 



The Wheat Joint Worm, Isosoma tritici, Fitch. — In some parts of western 

 Ontario this insect was present in considerable numbers. One correspondent, Mr. 

 'Sydney Cooper, of Mull, Ont., reports as follows: — 



' September 3, 1908. As requested, I send you the wheat plants injured by the 

 Joint Worm. On further investigation I find that the country for miles around has 

 the Joint Worm in the wheat. Our thresher is quite observant, and he says that he 

 has not threshed one crop as yet which is free of it. He also states that in one in- 

 stance, as the sun was shining on a bin of wheat, it had the appearance of moving, 

 the insects were so thick.' 



The adult insect is a true fly, with only two wings. It is very small, about one- 

 tenth of an inch long, jet black in colour, with pale legs. The females pierce the 

 straw and lay from six to twelve eggs inside its tissues. These eggs hatch into very 

 small, slender, footless grubs, of a pale yellow colour, which when mature are about 

 one-eighth of an inch in length. As the young grubs grow they cause a distortion of 

 the stems a little above the first or second joints from the roots. Most of the grubs 

 pass the winter inside of the galls or swellings, but a few transform and appear as 

 flies in late autumn. 



The following recommendations are taken from Bulletin 52, by the late Dr. 

 Fletcher: — 



' There is apparently only one brood of the Joint Worms in Canada; and, as they 

 pass the winter in the straw, for the most part so near to the ground that a large 

 proportion of the larvae are in the stubble left on the fields, they can be largely reduced 

 in numbers by burning over the stubble or by ploughing it down deeply. The broken 

 off hardened pieces of straw which become separated in threshing and cleaning should 

 be carefully gathered and burnt. Sometimes no apparent galls are formed, merely 

 slight swellings with a hard, thickened condition of the straws representing the galls. 

 These portions break off in threshing, and many are carried through with the grain. 

 Straw from an infested crop should be got out of the way, either by feeding or burning 

 before the ensuing spring.' 



A regular short rotation of crops, while reducing the number of bad weeds and 

 preventing them from increasing, will also do much to reduce the numbers of th« 

 Joint Worms. All recorded occurrences of Joint Worms in Canada have been of short 

 duration. 



The Chinch Bug, Blissus leucoptems Say. — Occasional records in Canada of this 

 .very destructive insect have been made, but fortunately no serious outbreak has, as 

 yet, occurred, within the Dominion. In September, 1908, specimens of an insect were 

 sent to the Division from Mr. R. Benedict, of Crowland, Ont., with the statement 

 that it had destroyed all the late oats in his district. The oats, he said, turned white 

 just after they had headed out, and thousands of the insects were on the ground. 

 When the specimens were examined, it was at once seen that they were the well-known 

 Chinch Bug, which has caused millions of dollars of loss to crops in a single year in 

 the United States. Writing further, under date of October 5, Mr. Benedict says: 

 ' With regard to the Chinch Bug, I may say that the insects did practically no damage 



