INJURIOUS INSECTS. 253 



Sowing the field with lime at the time the wheat is in blossom, 

 has been repeatedly, and by some with much confidence, urged. 

 This remedy has been much resorted to, and very conflicting state- 

 ments with regard to its efl'icacy have been laid before the public. 

 A simple experiment, directly to the point, is of more value than a 

 thousand cases that tend to support any particular opinion ; and 

 such an experiment I am prepared to narrate. Jarvis Martin, Esq., 

 the owner of the infested field repeatedly alluded to, at my sug- 

 gestion, repaired to it one evening, and sprinkled several of the 

 heads with tolerably fresh air-slaked lime, until they were white 

 with the powder adhering to them ; thus applying it far more pro- 

 fusely and effectually than can be accomplished by any " sowing" 

 of this substance. With the light of a lantern, these heads were 

 now closely watched, and the flies were observed to hover around 

 and alight upon them as freely, and insert their ovipositors with the 

 same readines that they did upon the contiguous heads tiiat were 

 not thus treated. I deem this experiment sufficient to put to rest the 

 much mooted question with regard to ilie utility of lime as a shield 

 against the wheat-fly. 



A yet more prominent, and much more plausible mode of enabling 

 the wheat to escape injury from the fly, is, sowing the seed at such 

 times as will prevent its being in blossom at the period when the 

 insect appears. With this view, it is recommended to sow winter 

 wheat much earlier than was ordinarily done, that it may be so far 

 matured the following season at the time of the appearance of the 

 fly, as to be invulnerable to it ; and spring wheat, so late as not to 

 be in blossom until the fly has finished depositing its eggs. This 

 plan has been much relied upon, on both sides of the Atlantic, and 

 I have been heretofore disposed to regard it as probably the most 

 feasible of any — though by avoiding Scylla we were in danger of 

 Charybdis — for early sown winter wheat invites a return of the 

 hessian-fly, and late sown spring wheat is almost certain in this 

 vicinity to be attacked by " the rust " {Puccinia graminis). Nu- 

 merous instances, moreover, can be adduced which tend much to 

 support the utility of this measure. One of these, as strong as any 

 that has come to my knowledge, I may here state. In a field of 

 spring wheat of my own, raised in 1843, every kernel in the top of 

 almost every head was entirely destroyed, whilst the lower two- 

 thirds or three-fourths of the ears were wholly uninjured. I could 



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