15 



DESTRUCTION OF VOLUNTEER WHEAT. 



Perhaps the nnportance of this measure is best illustrated bv the 

 condition frec^uentl}^ observed in tields of youno- wheat in the fall, 

 where ever}- volunteer plant is infested and the sown g-rain is entirely 

 free from attack. The volunteer plants were above ground in time 

 to enable the fly to deposit her eggs on them, Avith the result that large 

 numbers of flaxseeds will go through the winter and the flies there- 

 from will deposit their eggs on the plants which constitute the crop 

 itself. Thus the growth of volunteer plants menaces, to a certain 

 degree, the crop of the following year, precisely as does a held sown 

 too early more seriously menace adjoining fields that are uninfested 

 in the fall. This destruction of volunteer plants by plowing, disking, 

 or otherwise must take place before the larva? have matured in order 

 to be effective. 



ENRICHING THE SOIL. 



While it may seem " far fetched" to bring forward as a preventive 

 measure the enrichment of the soil, a fertile soil will produce plants 

 that will withstand with little injur}- attacks that will prove disastrous ■ 

 to plants growing on an impoverished or thin soil. This is because a 

 fertile soil will enable an infested plant to tiller freely, and these tillers 

 will have sutiicient vitality to withstand the winter and send up head- 

 producing stems in the spring. It is also chiefly on the thin or impov- 

 erished soils that the difficulty of sowing late enough to evade the fall 

 attack and at the same time sec.ure 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 freel}^ tillering, to outgrow a light attack of the 

 fly that otherwise might prove serious, 



THE USE OF GOOD SEEO. 



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 



