254 



Hessian Fly. 



V0L.V 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Hessian Fly. 



Mr. Editor, — A word to Tycho Brahe. I 

 admit that what is here known as the Hessian 

 fly is unknown as such in England. I spoke 

 of it as the Ry generally, not specifically — 

 just as it is customary to denominate many 

 of those insects, which prey upon the crops 

 in this country, bugs. But in England they 

 have what is there called the Hessian fly — 

 nay more — it is also called cecidomyia, and 

 it preys too on the wheat, although not in the 

 way in which it is attacked by the animal of 

 that name in this country ; and nature has 

 there too, provided a check on the multipli- 

 cation of this scourge, by making it the prey 

 of no fewer than three different kinds of ich- 

 neumons, which are often, no doubt, as here, 

 mistaken for the cecidomyia itself. And we 

 find that, while fallowed wheat and that 

 ■which is raised from the immediate aid of 

 unfermented manure, are very apt to be af- 

 fected with this disease, as it is termed, those 

 raised on an unexhausted and unmanured 

 soil will remain free and uncontaminated, al- 

 though immediately adjoining; and the pre- 

 ference is always given to clover-lays as a 

 seed-bed, the produce from which is heavier 

 and a brighter sample. But our clover-lays 

 are managed in a way to which your corre- 

 spondent must be a stranger ; they are turned 

 very deep, with a furrow not more than nine 

 inches in width, and the land laid in ridges, 

 if on a moist soil, not more than six feet wide, 

 and carefully rounded, that no water might 

 lodge during winter; with cross drains to 

 carry the water from the open furrows be- 

 tween the ridges, into the ditches, with which 

 every field is provided, and these are care- 

 fully cleansed as soon as the crop is sown ; 

 and if the plants are lifted by the winter 

 frosts, a heavy roller is passed over the land 

 as soon as the frost has left in the spring, 

 which operation causes them to take fresh 

 root and tiller anew. 



It would be in vain for me to attempt to 

 make your correspondent understand what I 

 mean by retarding the premature growth of 

 the crop in the autumn, and thus to render it 

 more able to bear the blasts of an unfriendly 

 state of atmosphere ; but if his wheat curls 

 upon the ground at this season of the year, 

 instead of showing erect blades of a light 

 green colour, broad and sharp at the tops, his 

 neighbours might know what is meant by it: 

 his fear, that if it were to remain small on 

 the ground in the autumn, it would be over- 

 run with weeds, is, I dare say, well grounded 

 — but in England we do not grow weeds ; and 

 this observation leads me to notice his re- 

 marks on the worthlessness — nay, the poi- 

 sonous quality of his second crop of clover ; 



this, too, is unknown in England, the second 

 cut being quite equal in quality with the first, 

 never causing slobbering in cattle, either 

 while in its green or dry state : but does he 

 not know that this evil arises, not from the 

 clover, but from the weeds which are con- 

 tained in it, the lobelia or the spurge, which 

 spring up after cutting the first crop, and are 

 able to make head with the second, as that is 

 very generally light and weakl But, as I 

 said, we do not grow these weeds, and if we 

 did, the practice of manuring the first crop 

 of clover, by which it is brought to the scythe 

 ten days earlier, and the luxuriance of the 

 second crop in consequence, would go far to 

 choke and rid the land of them ; this, how- 

 ever, could never be efl^ected were we to take 

 two wliite grain-crops in succession ; indeed, 

 he is so unacquainted with the mode which 

 we are compelled to adopt to enable us to 

 pay 30 or 40 dollars an acre rent for land, 

 that much allowance must be made for the 

 incredulity, which he expresses, when told 

 that such conduct would subject a tenant 

 there to a prosecution for damages; but I 

 have it in my power to give, for his informa- 

 tion, a verbatim clause of a lease of a farm 

 in England, and leave him to form his own 

 conclusions, after boasting that it is the prac- 

 tice in his part of the country to take three : 

 it runs thus — 



"I hereby agree to adopt and adhere to 

 such a system of rotation of cropping as Mr. 



, by himself or agent, shall direct, and 



engage that I will not, in any instance, grow 

 two white grain crops in succession, without 

 being subject to forfeit the second of the said 

 crops, and to pay a double amount of rent for 

 the year in which such crops shall have been 

 taken." 



I must just observe, that our mowers, too, 

 prefer a smooth surface to work upon, and 

 they have it : but we take the labour to carry 

 our manure periodically from the cattle-yard 

 during the winter, to the clover-field intended 

 to be manured in the spring, where, by turn- 

 ing it carefully up, fermentation is induced, 

 and the mass is rendered more fit for spread- 

 ing ; besides, a heavy roller is considered as 

 indispensable an implement as a plough, and 

 is in constant requisition in the spring, for 

 the purpose of rolling all the mowing land, 

 and even the pastures, by which they are 

 very essentially benefited. 



I am quite amused with your correspond- 

 ent's observation, that the people in his 

 county are able to do better for their cattle 

 during winter than to feed them on second- 

 crop clover hay ! Why it is the crop which 

 is expressly reserved in England as food for 

 ewes and lambs while on turnips in the win- 

 ter — but I had forgot, we do not feed lobelia 

 with it. The stalk of clover which I men- 



