FLY IN WHEAT. 



FLY IN WHEAT. 



grain at the time when the maggots are hatched. 

 When the maggots begin their depredations 

 soon after the blossoming of the grain, they do 

 the greatest injury, for the kernels never fill 

 out at all. Pinched or partly filled kernels are 

 the consequence of their attacks when the 

 grain is more advanced. The hulls of the im- 

 poverished kernels will always be found split 

 open on the convex side, so as to expose the 

 embryo. This is caused by the drying and 

 shrinking of the hull, after a portion of the con- 

 tents thereof has been sucked out by the mag- 

 gots. Towards the end of July and in the be- 

 ginning of August the full-grown maggots leave 

 off eating, and become sluggish and torpid, pre- 

 paratory to moulting their skins. This process, 

 which has been alluded to by Judge Duel and 

 some other writers, has been carefully observed 

 by Mrs. Gage, who has sent to me the maggots 

 before and after moulting, together with some 

 of their cast skins. Within two or three days 

 after moulting, the maggots either drop of their 

 own accord, or are shaken out of the ears by 

 the wind, and fall to the ground. They do not 

 let themselves down by threads, for they are 

 not able to spin. Nearly all of them disappear 

 before the middle of August, and they are very 

 rarely found in the grain at the time of harvest. 

 " Several cases of the efficacy of fumigation 

 in preventing the depredations of these insects 

 are recorded in our agricultural papers. For 

 this purpose brimstone has been used, in the 

 proportion of one pound to every bushel of 

 seed sown. Strips of woollen cloth, dipped in 

 melted brimstone, and fastened to sticks in 

 different parts of the field, and particularly on 

 the windward side, are set on fire, for several 

 evenings in succession, at the time when the 

 grain is in blossom; the smoke and fumes thus 

 penetrate the standing grain, and prove very 

 offensive or destructive to the flies, which are 

 laying their eggs. A thick smoke from heaps 

 of burning weeds, sprinkled with brimstone, 

 around the sides of the field, has also been re- 

 commended. Lime or ashes, strown over the 

 grain when in blossom, has, in some cases, ap- 

 peared to protect the crop; and the Rev. Henry 

 Colman, the Commissioner for the Agricultu- 

 ral Survey of Massachusetts, says that this 

 preventive, if not infallible, may be relied on 

 with strong confidence. For every acre of 

 grain, from one peck to a bushel of newly 

 slaked lime or of good wood ashes will be re- 

 quired ; and this should be scattered over the 

 plants when they are wet with dew or rain. 

 Two or three applications of it have some- 

 times been found necessary. Whether it be 

 possible to destroy the maggots after they have 

 left the grain, and have betaken themselves to 

 their winter quarters, just below the surface 

 of the ground, remains to be proved. Some 

 persons have advised burning the stubble, and 

 ploughing up the ground, soon after the grain 

 is harvested, in order to kill the maggots, or to 

 bury them so deeply that they could not make 

 their escape after they were transformed to 

 flies. Perhaps thoroughly liming the soil be- 

 fore it is ploughed may contribute to the de- 

 struction of the insects. It is stated that our 

 crops may be saved from injury by sowing 

 early in the autumn or late in the spring. By 

 492 



the first, it is supposed that the grain will be- 

 come hard before many of the flies make their 

 appearance; and by the latter, the plants do 

 not come into blossom until the flies have dis- 

 appeared. In those parts of New England 

 where these insects have done the greatest in- 

 jury, the cultivation of fall-sown or winter 

 grain has been given up ; and this, for some 

 years to come, will be found the safest course. 

 The proper time for sowing in the spring will .j 

 vary with the latitude and elevation of the 

 place, and the forwardness of the season. 

 From numerous observations made in this 

 part of the country, it appears that grain sown 

 after the 15th or 20th of May generally escapes 

 the ravages of these destructive insects. Late 

 sowing has almost entirely banished the wheat- 

 flies from those parts of Vermont where they 

 first appeared ; and there is good reason to ex- 

 pect that these depredators will be completely 

 starved out and exterminated, when the means 

 above recommended have been generally adopt- 

 ed and persevered in for several years in suc- 

 cession. 



" Mrs. Gage has discovered another perni- 

 cious insect in the ears of growing wheat. It 

 seems to agree with the accounts of the Thrips 

 cerealium, which sometimes infests wheat in 

 Europe to a great extent. This insect belongs 

 to the order Hemiptera. In its larva state it 

 is smaller than the wheat maggot, is orange- 

 coloured, and is provided with six legs, two 

 antennae, and a short beak, and is very nimble 

 in its motions. It is supposed to suck out the 

 juices of the seed, thus causing the latter to 

 shrink, and become what the Engflsh farmers 

 call pungled. This little pest may probably 

 be destroyed by giving the grain a thorough 

 coating of slaked lime. 



" Our agricultural papers contain some ac- 

 counts of an insect or insects much larger than 

 the maggots of the wheat-fly, growing to the 

 length of three-eighths of an inch or more, and 

 devouring the grain in the ear, and after it is 

 harvested. The insects to which I allude have 

 received the names of wheat-worms, gray 

 worms, and brown weevils ; and, although 

 these different names may possibly refer to 

 two or more distinct species, I am inclined to 

 think that all of them are intended for only one 

 kind of insect. Sometimes this has also been 

 called the grain-worm ; whereby it becomes 

 somewhat difficult to separate the accounts of 

 its history and depredations from those of the 

 Cecidomyia, or wheat-insect, described in the 

 foregoing pages. It may, however, very safely 

 be asserted that the wheat-worm of the western 

 part of New York and of the northern part of 

 Pennsylvania is entirely distinct from the 

 maggots of our wheat-fly, and that it does not 

 belong to the same order of insects. From 

 the description of it, published in the sixth 



j volume of the Cultivator, by Mr. Willis Gaylord, 

 this depredator appears to be a caterpillar, or 

 span-worm, being provided with twelve feet, 

 six of which are situated near each extremity 



I of its body. Like other span-worms, or Geo- 



! meters, it has the power of spinning and sus- 

 pending itself by a thread. Mr. Gaylord says 

 that it is of a yellowish-brown or butternut 



, colour ; that it not only feeds on the kernel in 



