128 New Disease in Wheat. 



at an early period, made a good shew of being a fine 

 crop ; but which, all at once — or at least in a very few 

 days, seemed wholly to droop and put on the same sick- 

 ly hue which I had previously observed to the eastward 

 of Albany, and also in the county of Montgomery. I 

 had never seen the hessian fl}-, but had generally un- 

 derstood that its first appearance was that oi?i small white 

 maggot in the stalk of the grain^ about the first andsecona 

 joint, and that the stalks, infested with the fly, or rather 

 maggot, could easily be pulled asunder. Examining 

 some stalks of my spring wheat, and finding them per- 

 fectly sound, and not to be separated, except by cutting 

 them with a knife, and at the same time observing a 

 yellow dust or rust on the decayed leaves, I hastily 

 concluded that the defect in the grain was not owing to 

 the hessian fiy, but to a mildew, which had caused the 

 stalks and leaves to grow rusty and perish. But acci- 

 dentally observing that the roots of all the stalks which 

 I had pulled up, appeai'ed dead, and quite decayed like 

 over rotten flax, I was led to examine them with more 

 attention, when I found a number of very small white 

 wo?-ms, extremely fine, and very lively, which I under- 

 stand is never the case with the hessian fly. But of this 

 circumstance (respecting the ahvays torpid state of the 

 hessian fly) I have no personal knowledge. These 

 ^vorms were of diflerent lengths, from an eighth to a 

 fourth of an inch (as well as I could judge from the eye) 

 and moved either end foremost; although evidently dif- 

 ferent as to the force of the head from the other extre- 

 mity — what I supposed the head, being longer, and of 

 a red colour. The body of some was nearly as white 

 as a mag;got in ncw^ cheese, others of the pale green 



