THE GENESEE FARMER. 



271 



and near the surface. Winter barley, therefore, is 

 more liable to injury from the uplifting of the roots 

 than wheat. It should therefore be sown only on 

 land which is well drained, and the more thorough- 

 ly the land can be pulverized, the better. 



It is best to sow the first or second week in Sep- 

 tember, but fair crops have been obtained sown as 

 late as the first of October. One and a half bush- 

 els of seed is the usual quantity in this neighbor- 

 hood, but two bushels is none too much. With 

 good soil and culture, forty bushels per acre is not 

 an unusual crop. 



tm •-^— — — ■ 



WINTER WHEAT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



Levi Bartlett, of Warner, N. H., in an article 

 in the Boston Cultivator, states that, for two or 

 three years past, spring wheat has suff'ered badly 

 in his neighborhood from the ravages of the midge, 

 and also from rust. His experience in the cultiva- 

 tion of winter wheat is in accordance with our own 

 views on the subject. He says: 



"Winter wheat has been successfully grown here 

 for several years, and in most cases with very sat- 

 isfactory results where the sowing was done in 

 season, and a proper soil selected, and good culture 

 given. Without these requisites, the growing of win- 

 ter wheat is an uncertain branch of farming; with 

 tliem, the winter wheat crop is as sure as almost any 

 other we grow. That's my opinion, founded upon 

 five successive years' practice. During this number 

 of years, I have sutfered no material loss by the rav- 

 ages of the midge, the Hessian fly, or rust, or winter- 

 kill, and other farmers among us have been e(]ually 

 successful ; while, on the other hand, some have 

 failed in their attempts to grow it, and their wheat 

 was highly to be commended for not doing any bet- 

 ter under the treatment it received ! " 



Top Dressing Wheat at the Time of Sowixg. 

 — An intelligent farmer in Mendon, N. Y., informs 

 us that last fall he top dressed part of a field of 

 wheat with fine manure, and harrowed it in imme- 

 diately after the seed was sown. On the part so 

 dressed the wheat was a week earlier and produced 

 double tlie crop as that on the land uumanured. It 

 13 true, the land that was top dressed was higher 

 and drier than the unmanured portion. On the 

 latter, the wheat winter-killed badly ; the crop in 

 consequence was thin and late, and the midge de- 

 stroyed nearly the whole of it. Still, he is satisfied 

 that a top dressing of good fine manure gives the 

 young plants a good start in the fall, enables them 

 to withstand the winter better, and brings ihe crop 

 rapidly forward to maturity, and thus not only in- 

 creases the growth but lessens the danger of injury 



from the midge. 



-^•■^^ 



The corn crop of the United States in 1850 was 

 592,326,612 bushels. Of this, 11,000,000 bushels 

 were used for distilling pui'poses. 



THE WHEAT MIDGE -A SUGGESTION. 



Since farmers have discovered that the wheat 

 midge can propagate itself in barley and other 

 crops, and that, therefore, it is vain to give up 

 wheat culture till this insect "passes over," they 

 are beginning to inquire if nothing can be done to 

 destroy it, or at least keep it in check. We have 

 no doubt that means will be discovered to accom- 

 plish so desirable an object, now that farmers are 

 awake to its importance. The first step is to get a 

 familiar knowledge of the nature and habits of the 

 insect. 



The fly lays its eggs in the middle of the flower 

 while the wheat is in blossom, and when they 

 hatch, the little lemon-colored larvte abstract the 

 juices of the grain, and cause it to shrivel. When 

 full grown, they drop to the ground and penetrate 

 the soil about an inch. Here they lie in the pupa 

 or grub state all winter, and come out as flies the 

 following June. We annex a cut of the male and 

 female fly, magnified, and also of the larva and the 

 pupa. 



There is not much chance of destroying the 

 midge in the fly state ; but can not we destroy the 

 larva or pupa? Many of the larva) remain in the 

 shriveled grain and in the chaff. These can easily 

 be destroyed by burning the chaff and refuse grain, 

 and the larvas themselves can frequently be swept 

 up in large quantities; these too should be thrown 

 into the fire. 



To destroy those in the gi'ound, we would sug- 

 gest, first, to burn the stubble. This is known to 

 be the best means of destroying the Hessian fly, 

 which is also a great pest to wheat growers. After 

 burning over the stubble, gang-plow it about two 

 inches deep, and let it remain in this state all win- 

 ter. Then the following spring plow it with a 

 Michigan double plow, turning the two inches of 

 loose surface soil to the bottom of the furrow, and 

 then throw a good furrow six or eight inches deep 

 on the top of it. 



The reasons for these suggestions are obvious. 

 Burning the stubble would probably kill a portion 

 of the larvte, and remove the vegetable matter 

 which affords protection to the pupa in the soil 

 during the winter. Plowing the wheat stubble 



