INSECTS ATTACKING WHEAT. 33 



no doubt that the soluble commercial fertilizers, applied in spring to 

 infested fields, would have a happy effect, whether with profit or not 

 can only be tested by experiment. 



6. Finally, other things being equal, those varieties of wheat with a 

 stiff and flinty stem, and those which tiller somewhat from the root, will 

 suffer least under fly attack the first, because the straw will not so 

 readily bend or break at the point weakened by the maggot; and the 

 second, because the flies of the second spring brood select fresh, young 

 shoots for the deposition of their eggs in preference to the older and 

 tougher stalks, with the effect to kill only these valueless sprouts, and 

 to diminish by so much the injury to the heading stems. 



Kansas Notes. The Hessian Fly has been known in Kansas 

 as a wheat pest since 1871. It is believed to have been imported 

 into this country during the Revolutionary War, and since that 

 time has been steadily gaining ground. In 1788 the wheat crop 

 about Trenton, N. J., was a total failure because of the fly's work. 

 In 1800 the pest did great damage in New York; in 1843 Mary- 

 land and Virginia were overrun. In 1844 it did much injury in 

 northern Indiana and Illinois, and the contiguous portions of 

 Michigan and Wisconsin. The following year it did more or less 

 injury all over Illinois, and entered Georgia, where it worked great 

 havoc in 1846. 



The first serious invasion of Kansas occurred in 1884; although 

 1871, 1877 and 1880 were marked by its appearances. Concern- 

 ing the 1884 invasion, Prof. F. H. Snow had to say, in the Fourth 

 Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture (1883- 

 '84), as follows (pages 604-606): 



The most conspicuous entomological event of the year 1884 was the 

 successful entrance within our borders of the far-famed Hessian Fly. 

 This species appeared in such numbers as to properly entitle the move- 

 ment to be called an invasion. The first rnutterings of the invasion 

 were heard in the month of May, from Wyandotte and Johnson coun- 

 ties, on the eastern border. In these counties it was reported that the 

 "May" wheat was affected, and that the depredations were most exten- 

 sive on lands cultivated in wheat the preceding year, and much worse 

 on lands cultivated in wheat for three successive crops ( M. B. Newman). 

 Late in the autumn reports began to come in of a very general distri- 

 bution of this army of invasion throughout the eastern third of the 

 State. The weather of the year, while unfavorable for the Chinch-bug, 

 was all that could be desired by the Hessian Fly, this species thriving 

 in wet seasons, but languishing in dry seasons. Thus these two species 

 seem to be each other's counterparts bad weather for one being good 

 weather for the other. 



