Notices for a Young Farmer. xxix 



and in the northern parts of our country, summer wheat is 

 raised to great advantage. Whether or not it would escape 

 the fit) is doubtful ; for flies have been found in plenty in 

 summer barley. 



It is not yet agreed, what kinds of wheats best withstand 

 injuries from the Hessian Fly. The yellow bearded and other 

 wheats with solid straw, or strong stems, (the solid stemmed 

 wheats being designated by the appellation of cane or cone 

 wheats, ) are deemed the most efficacious. Farmers should 

 bend their sedulous attention to the selection of such wheats. 

 Good farming, manure, and reasonably late sowing, are, cer- 

 tainly, the best securities. Bnt too (ate seeding is unsafe: 

 for the spring-brood of flies attack the tender plants of very 

 late sown wheat, not sufficiently forward to be capable of re- 

 sisting this foe, with the like destructive effect, we experi- 

 ence in spring barley ; appearing to prefer, for this purpose, 

 plants in the edvly stages of their growth. It is, most proba- 

 bly, a native herei It never entirely leaves us ; though it 

 appears, at irregular periods, in numbers less scourging than 

 at times when its ravages are more conspicuously destructive. 

 It seems to make movements of its main body from North 

 and East, (where it was first perceived,) to South ; leaving 

 always, on its march, detachments or stragglers, sufficiently 

 monitory to keep us on our guard. Its name does not prove 

 its importation ; for that appellation was bestowed during our 

 revolutionary excitements ; when every thing we disliked was 

 termed Hessian, Entomologists class it among the Tipuloe ; 

 whereof there are more than 120 varieties. In Hesse , they 

 have not this vermin, to annoy their crops.* 



Steeping your seed wheat, is attended with little trouble 

 or expense ; and is, assuredly, worth the trial ; as it has 

 so many, and such respectable, advocates. Avoid, however, 



♦Since the above was in type, a scientific description of the Hessian Fly, 

 and of a parasitic insect which feeds on it, has appeared. It is written by Mr 

 Thomas Say ; and is published in the 3d number of the Journal of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of PhiladelpMa. He has given the insect the name of 

 Cecidomyia Destructor ; and considers it specifically distinct from the Tiptdu 

 tritfei of Kirby, and entirely unknown in Europe. 



