144 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



j. lg wing-cases, and long punctured thorax. 



A single pair of these insects may 

 produce six thousand descendants in 

 a year. They are destructive to stored 

 grain in both the perfect and larva 

 state. The female lays her eggs in 

 wheat in the granary. The young 



maggots burrow into the grain and consume its contents, 

 leaving only the husk. Their transformations are perfected 

 within the husks they have chambered out in the larva 

 state, and so secretly are their operations conducted that 

 it is impossible to detect their operations by simple in- 

 spection of a heap of wheat. The presence of these in- 

 sects may be detected by the weight of the grains ; on 

 throwing a handful into a bucket of water the diseased 

 grains will float. After the female has, by means of her 

 rostrum or beak, deposited an egg in the grain, she covers 

 it up with a sort of glue of the same colour as the husk, 

 hence the difficulty of detecting the presence of this depre- 

 dator in the granary during the time when it is in the 

 larva state. On the approach of cold weather the weevils 

 retire from the heaps of wheat and seek shelter in crevices 

 and cracks of the floor and walls. They remain torpid for 

 a while, and after having paired, soon die. They avoid the 

 light, hence one reason why constant turning of the wheat 

 and sifting is advantageously employed to drive them away. 

 They lie in general four or five inches below the surface of 

 the heap, and here the majority pair. Kiln drying appears 

 to be the only certain destruction to this pest. Frequent 

 turning and airing of the heaps, whitewashing the walls, 

 and sweeping the granaries very clean, with abundant venti- 

 lation, are artifices strongly recommended for the purpose 

 of diminishing the numbers of this pest. It is not likely 

 that farmers in Canada will suffer much from its depreda- 

 tion for some years to come. Where large quantities of 

 wheat, and particularly of foreign wheat, are allowed to 

 accumulate in store, there, no doubt, the ravages of this 

 insect will be felt, (b) The Wolf or Little Grain Moth, 



