FLY IN WHEAT. 



FLY IN WHEAT. 



the milky state, but also devours the germi- 

 nating end of the ripened grain, without, how- 

 ever, burying itself within the hull ; and that 

 it is found in great numbers, in the chaff, when 

 the grain is thrashed. He says, moreover, that 

 it has been known for years in the western 

 part of New York ; and that it is not so much 

 the new appearance of this insect, as its in- 

 crease, which has caused the present alarm 

 respecting it. The transformations and the 

 appearance of this insect in its perfected state 

 have not yet been described. Mr. Nathaniel 

 Sill, of Warren, Pennsylvania, has given a 

 somewhat different description of it. On 

 thrashing his winter-wheat, immediately after 

 harvest, he found among the screenings a vast 

 army of this new enemy. He says that it was 

 a caterpillar, about three-eighths of an inch in 

 length, when fully grown, and apparently of a 

 straw-colour ; but, when seen through a mag- 

 nifier, was found to be striped lengthwise with 

 orange and cream colour. Its head was dark 

 br\vn. It was provided with legs, could sus- 

 pend itself by a thread, and resembled a cater- 

 pillar in all its motions. This insect ought not 

 to be confounded with the smaller worms 

 found by Mr. Sill in the upper joints of th> 

 stems of the wheat, and within the kernels, 

 until their identity has been proved by further 

 observations. It appears highly probable that 

 Mr. Gaylord's and Mr. Sill's wheat-caterpillars 

 are the same, notwithstanding the difference in 

 thfir colour. Insects, of the same size as these 

 caterpillars, and of a brownish colour, have 

 been found in various parts of Maine, where 

 they have done much injury to the grain. 

 Unlike the maggots of the wheat-fly, with 

 which they have been confounded, they remain 

 depredating upon the ears of the grain until 

 after the time of harvest. Immense numbers 

 of them have been seen upon barn-floors, 

 where the grain has been thrashed, but they 

 soon crawl away, and conceal themselves in 

 crevices, where they probably undergo their 

 transformations. These wheat -worms, or 

 wheat-caterpillars, as they ought to be called, 

 if the foregoing accounts really refer to the 

 same kind of insect, are supposed by some 

 persons to be identical with the clover-worms, 

 which have been found in clover, in various 

 parts of the country, and have often been seen 

 spinning down from lofts and mows where 

 clover has been stowed away." 



FLIES DESTRUCTIVE TO BARLEY. Several 

 communications respecting a disease of bar- 

 ley-straw, produced by the punctures of in- 

 sects, were published in Fessenden's New 

 England Farmer, in 1829 and 1830 (vol. 8th). 

 In one of these, from the Hon. J. Merrill, 

 of Newburyport, it is stated that the barley 

 in that vicinity yields not much more than 

 the seed sown. Most of the stalks were found 

 to have a number of small worms within 

 them, near to the second joint, and had become 

 hardened in the part attacked. During several 

 years previous to this date the crops of barley 

 in various parts of Essex and Middlesex coun- 

 ties, had been more or less injured in the same 

 way, so as in some places to induce farmers to 

 abandon the culture. It was supposed that the 

 insects had been imported from Bremen, or 



some other port in the north of Europe. Thft 

 maggots were found to be transformed into 

 small flies, which were thought by some to be 

 the same as Hessian flies. In the summer of 

 1831, myriads of these flies were found aliv 

 in straw beds in Gloucester, the straw having 

 been taken from the fields the year before, 

 Complaints were made that the insects in these 

 straw beds stung those that slept upon them 

 But Dr. Harris thinks that the stings must 

 have come, not from the grain-fly itself, but 

 from parasites, vast numbers of which, closely 

 resembling the Larytomn Destructor, have been 

 found to come out of the diseased straw. 



When the barley is about 8 or 10 inches 

 high, the effects of the disease in it begin to be 

 visible by a sudden check in the growth of the 

 plants, and the yellow colour of their lower 

 leaves. If the butts of the straw are now ex- 

 amined, they will be found to be irregularly 

 swollen, and discoloured, between the second 

 and third joints, and, instead of being hollow, 

 are rendered solid, hard, and brittle, so that the 

 stem above the diseased part is impoverished, 

 and seldom produces any grain. Suckers, 

 however, shoot out below, and afterwards yield 

 a partial crop, seldom exceeding one-half the 

 usual quantity of grain. " It is evident," says 

 Mr. Gourgas, "that the soundness of the grain, 

 raised in a blighted field, is not affected thereby 

 in the slightest degree; the seed (eggs) to per- 

 petuate the disease from year to year is lodged 

 in the straw, which, when hatched, are the 

 worms" before mentioned. Dr. Andrew Ni- 

 chols, of Danvers states, that these worms are 

 about one-tenth of an inch in length, and of a 

 yellow or straw colour ; and that in the month 

 of November, they appeared to have passed to 

 the chrysalis state. They live through the 

 winter unchanged in the straw, many of them 

 in the stubble in the field, while others are car- 

 ried away when the grain is harvested. When 

 the barley is thrashed, numerous small pieces 

 of diseased straw, too hard to be broken by the 

 flail, will be found among the grain. Some of 

 these may be separated by the winnowing ma- 

 chine, but many others are too large and heavy 

 to be winnowed out, and remain with the grain, 

 from which they can only be removed by the 

 slow process of picking them out by hand. 



Dr. Harris, who examined portions of the 

 diseased barley-straw, states that he found each 

 piece to contain several small, whitish mag- 

 gots, each maggot imbedded in the thickened 

 and solid substance of the stem, a little longi- 

 tudinal hollow, of the shape of its own body ; 

 and its presence was known by an oblong 

 swelling upon the surface. In some pieces of 

 straw the swellings were so numerous as 

 greatly to disfigure the stem, the circulation in 

 which must have been very much checked if 

 not destroyed. Early in the following spring, 

 these maggots entered the pupae or chrysalis 

 state, and on the 15th of June the perfected 

 insects began to make their escape through 

 minute perforations in the straw, which they 

 gnawed for this purpose. Seven of these little 

 holes were counted in a piece of straw only 

 half an inch in length. The insects continued 

 to release themselves from their confinement 

 till the 5th of July, after which no more were 

 2T 493 



