234 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Oct. 



Experiments in Wheat Culture.— Hessian Fly. 



Mr. Editor : — Last year I told you I had 

 tried experiments with unleached tishes at the 

 rate of 72 bushels, salt five bushels, and lime 

 from 50 to 80 bushels per acre. I saw no dif- 

 ference in the wheat from the ashes ; the salt 

 was a decided improvement, so much so that I 

 shall sow about fifty barrels this season. Part I 

 shall reserve until early in the spring, and see 

 if there is any difference from that sown in the 

 fall ; and a few lands in each field I shall not 

 salt, to see if the experiment holds good another 

 season. That salted was at least four days ear- 

 lier than that not salted, and a much heavier 

 crop. The hurry of harvesting prevented me 

 from trying, from actual measurement, how 

 much it yielded more than an equal quantity of 

 land adjoining. The field 1 limed was very much 

 winter killed ; still that with 80 bushels to the 

 acre, was decidedly best. 



Now for the Hessian fly. In your last number, 

 page 205, you say — "As the Hessian fiy lives 

 only some 10 or 15 days during the last weeks 

 in September or the first of October, if no wheat 

 was up, and prepared as a nidus wherein to de- 

 posit its eggs, very few, if any, Hessian flies 

 would be found in the spring." 



Now the late sown wheat is often much more 

 hurt with the fly than early sown ; farmers of 

 experience will tell you so. For instance, in 

 1845, I sowed a field on the 14th and 15th of 

 September; my neighbor sowed one adjoining 

 late in October, so late that it was barely up 

 when winter set in. Mine was a very good 

 crop — his was consumed by the fly, so that 1 do 

 not suppose he got five bushels to the acre. — 

 Our land was of the same quality, and divided by 

 post and board fence. When did the jly get in 

 his wheat ? 



Another query to solve. I exchanged seed 

 wheat with a Mr. Rees, of Clyde, Wayne Co., 

 in 1845. I sowed it on half of a 11 acre field, 

 and on tlie same day sowed the other half with 

 other wheat, (Soule's wheat.) That which I 

 obtained from Mr. Rees came up yellow and 

 sickly, while the other came up green and 

 healthy ; they continued so all the fall. I ex- 

 amined it, and found that from Clyde alive with 

 the fly, and none in the other ; and while that 

 part sown with seed from Clyde gave only V2h 

 bushels per acre, my whole crop gave within a 

 fraction of 31 bushels per acre — and I was satis- 

 fied that the soil in the part of the field on which 

 the Clyde wheat was sown was as good as any 

 of my other fields. Now, where or how did the 

 pj come into the Clyde ivheal, if it did not get 

 in the kernels of seed ? And if the fly only 

 lives a short time in September or October, how 

 does it come that many fields of barley have 

 been destroyed by it, when barley is sown the 

 end of April or beginning of May, and harvested 



in July or early in August. Now, when farm- 

 ers see such things, and Editors tell them the 

 fly only lives a few weeks in the end of Septenv 

 ber or first of October, they may well say the 

 men who write for papers know nothing about 

 it. I believe that the eggs of the fly are depos- 

 ited in the seed before cutting. From experi- 

 ence 1 have always found that wheat that was 

 early ripe or the crop raised from it, was sel- 

 dom hurt with the fly. 



Yours respectfully, 



John Johnston. 

 Near Geneva, Sept., 1847. 



We thank Mr. Johnston for the above inter- 

 esting letter. He seems to have overlooked the 

 important fact stated by us that, the Hessian fly 

 produces two generations in a year ; and that 

 the one which is at maturity in the spring does 

 the principal injury alike to late and early sown 

 winter grain and spring crops. It is to avoid 

 producing a spring crop of Hessian flies that we 

 advise late seeding, not by one or two farmers, 

 but by all wheat growers where this insect pre- 

 vails. We ask Mr. J. to review his comments 

 on our text, a part of which is in these words : 

 " One man may raise flies enough on a twenty 

 acre field, sown in the first week of September, 

 to destroy half the grain in a whole township the 

 spring and summer following." 



The fly whose larvas are sown with the seed 

 is the cccidomyia trilici ; while the Hessian fly 

 of which we spoke is the cecidomyia destructor. 

 Friend J. has confounded the two — one attacks 

 the stem near its roots, and the other the heads 

 of the wheat plant. 



The New Settlements, vs. the Old. 



I Asi glad to see another Richmond in the field, 

 tilting a lance in favor of emigrating to new 

 lands in the west. J. W. Falley does not an- 

 swer my query by a case in point. He however 

 makes out a very good one; and I am under no 

 temptation to give the converse of his picture, 

 as 1 feel certain that he has it, in his own neigh- 

 borhood, in full relief before him — else why is it 

 that the newspapers there give such an array in 

 their columns of Sheriff's sales and Mortgacre 

 advertisements. 



But friend Falley only reiterates that which 

 I before asserted, to wit: That Michigan had 

 made the transition from log h(Hise simplicity, t© 

 tlie age of orange peel and paint, with a magical 

 celerity heretofore unknown in tl;e annals of new 

 States. Is he not a little illiberal, when he says 

 that I "do not understand tiie character of Mich- 

 igan's first settlers 1" Let any man ride through 

 this county and see the great breadth of smooth 

 half tilled fields — the rootless decayed log houses 

 — the large but sparsely scattered farm man- 

 sions — methinks he will understand diat the bone 

 and muscle which had made and fenced these 



