124 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



rake and burn. Prepare the seed bed thoroughly and fertilize well, 

 when injury is expected, so as to ensure a strong growth and 

 early ripening. Green manure containing infested straw should 

 not be scattered on land to be used for wheat, and all infested 

 straw which has not been used up by April should be burned. 



The Wheat Straw-worm * 



" The Wheat Straw- worm, "says Professor F. M. Webster, " sus- 

 tains the same relation to winter-wheat culture west of the Miss- 

 issippi River that the joint-worm does to the cultivation of this 

 cereal east of this river. Both, when excessively abundant, 

 occasion losses from siight to total. A wheat stem attacked 

 by the joint- worm may produce grain of a more or less inferior 

 quality and less of it; but the spring attack of the wheat straw- 

 worm is fatal to the plant affected, as no grain at all is produced, 

 and while the second generation of the same has a less disastrous 

 effect in the field, it nevertheless reduces the grade and weight 



FIG. 105. Wheat straw-worm a, ventral view; b, side view of larva; c, 

 antennae; d, mandible; e, anal segment, ventral view; /, adult female; 

 #, fore-wing; h, hind-wing; i, aborted wing. (After Riley.) 



of the grain." Though the straw-worm occurs over much of 

 the same territory in the East as the joint- worm, it is rarely so 

 injurious. 



Life History and Description.^" There are two generations 



* Harmolita grandis Riley. Family Chalcididce. 

 See W. J. Phillips, U. S. Dept. Apr. Bulletin 808. 



t From Circular 106, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Dept. Agr., by F. M. 

 Webster and Geo. I. Reeves. 



