SECRETARY'S REPORT. 131 



cap sheaf, or hay caps, where it may be allowed to remain 

 without further labor, until sufficiently cured to take to the 

 barn. 



A light, straw-colored worm, resembling in its structure the 

 common wire worm, but much smaller, has infested the wheat 

 fields in some localities, and of which we can find no description 

 by writers on the enemies of the wheat plant. Its ravages 

 are usually committed when the plants arc young, and not 

 more than five or six inches in height. The worm burrows 

 in the ground, sometimes cutting off the plants just beneath 

 the surface, and again eats its way into the stalk and up 

 through the centre or beneath the outer leaf, killing every plant 

 it touches, and making the grain too thin and scattering for 

 great crops. Of its nature and habits, length of life or manner 

 of propagation, we know little or nothing, though its works are 

 very manifest. To guard against injury by it, we would suggest 

 the ploughing of those fields in the fall, that are intended 

 for spring wheat. If done immediately before the ground 

 freezes, they might be destroyed by the frost, if in their incipi- 

 ent state, and before they could burrow below its reach, if they 

 are then in maturity. 



The past season has witnessed the advent upon our wheat 

 fields, of an insect, identical in every respect, with what is 

 known as the Indian corn plant louse, though that insect is not 

 supposed to prey upon wheat. Its presence has not been noticed 

 in all localities. It causes injury by extracting the juices of the 

 straw and head, while yet quite green, and causing the berries 

 to be less plump and heavy. Whether this insect is to continue 

 its work, and become a pest to our fields, time alone will deter- 

 mine. The past season, early fields almost universally escaped 

 injury from it. And in the future, the early sown may be safe 

 from its depredations. "We have thus finished all we deem it 

 desirable to say respecting the modes of wheat culture suitable 

 for our State. We entertain the idea, and have made it suffi- 

 ciently evident throughout the report, that wheat can, with 

 proper cultivation, be successfully grown here. But the vital 

 point is, will it pay ? Of itself, is there any direct profit in it ? 

 Can we not make more money by raising other crops, and pur- 

 chasing our wheat ? Leaving out the indirect profit of wheat 

 culture by the increased value of our lands caused by the culti- 



