312 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [10:8— Nov., 1914 



root louse, and probably some diseases that tried to rob our com 

 plant of its food and sap, failed to injure it because it was so well 

 fed and was therefore strong enough to resist its enemies. ^ ' ' 



About the time the wheat was harvested, a great army of chinch 

 bugs were mobilized and began an invasion toward our com field. 

 Mr, Farmer and his neighbors learned of the plans of the enemy 

 and began a co-operative movement to head off their advance. 

 Each farmer laid a narrow line of heavy road oil, known as Road 

 Oil Number 7, on properly prepared strips around the borders of 

 their wheat fields. About thirty feet apart along this oil-line were 

 dug post holes. When the hungry bugs started to leave the wheat 

 fields on foot, because they cannot fly at this stage of their life his- 

 tory, they found themselves unable to cross the oil-line, and trav- 

 eling back and forth along the line, they tumbled into the post 

 holes in great quantities. It was an easy matter to pour a little 

 oiHnto the holes and kill the entrapped bugs. When all the farm- 

 ers worked together the corn fields were saved from the ravages 

 of the chinch bugs. 



When our com plant had grown so tall and its roots had spread 

 from row to row, Mr. Farmer stopped the cultivator and let the 

 weeds and grass grow as they would. Perhaps it was best for 

 grass to grow then since it would use up some nitrogen which might 

 otherwise escape from the soil into the air, and being taken up by 

 the grass it is not lost to the soil. 



The chief work of our com plant now is to mature and put on a 

 good ear of com. In about 60 days from planting it had develop- 

 ed a strong, leafy stalk, well braced in the ground, and had begun 

 to send out a tassel at the top and a cluster of silvery silks from the 

 end of an ear, bending gracefully down from the center of the stalk. 

 The tassel and silks are the blossoms of the com. Unlike most of 

 our common flowers, the parts of the flower in the com are thus 

 separated, the stamens with the pollen grains make up the tassel, 

 the pistils each produce the kernels of com with a silk hanging 

 from the end of the ear. When the tassel is ripe, clouds of pollen 

 grains are blown about through the com, and at the same time 

 the silks at the end of the ears are ripe to receive the pollen grains 

 which drop upon them. Now these pollen grains must fall upon 

 the silks, and every silk must receive a pollen grain, otherwise the 

 kernel of com at the end of the silk will fail to develop and the 

 ear would be only a cob. When the pollen grain from the tassel 



