878 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



of water lime cement will make a plaster that will stand a great 

 deal of beating storm. 



Mr. Adams suggested two or three coats of paint. 



3. Are hemlock posts as durable as chestnut ? Decidedly no. 

 Mr. Pardee — They are just as durable if kyanised. 



WHEAT WEEVIL. 



4. Wanted, a remedy for the wheat weevil. Wheat must be 

 threshed as soon as harvested ; and if it can be thinly spread on 

 sheets or a clean spot of earth in the hot sun, and then stored in 

 bins or casks, it will not be likely to be troubled with weevil. 

 Stored in casks, and covered with powdered lime, it will be pre- 

 served from the weevil, and the lime can be winnowed out when 

 the wheat is wanted. 



Dr. Trimble, of New Jersey, said that the first line of this ans- 

 wer was all that was wanted. If the pea is stung it must be 

 used at once, after the crop is gathered, for if left until spring 

 the egg is hatched and the weevil feeds upon the inside of the 

 pea. So with wheat. He considered the lime useless. 



Rev. Mr. Weaver stated that he had known the weevil to be 

 nearly driven out of a large barn by sprinkling quicklime through 

 it when it was empty, and believed that further applications 

 would have entirely driven them out. 



Mr. Robinson said that he knew that wheat stored in a bin, 

 with lime, as described, would prevent the weevil, although the 

 barn is entirely infested with weevil. 



Dr. Trimble said, that the question could not be so readily 

 settled. The Hessian fly has sometimes been so numerous as 

 almost to obscure the sun, and the next year they have been 

 utterly destroyed by the Ichneumon fly. It cannot be driven out 

 by lime or any other application. Unless destroyed by the Ich- 

 neumon, upon a certain day they will leave the barn in a crowd, 

 and go to the growing wheat and deposit their eggs. This they 

 do twice in the year. 



Rev. Mr. Weaver said, that the Ichneumon fly might account 

 for the weevil's disappearance in a section of country but not in 

 a particular barn. 



Mr. Robinson said that salt would preserve corn from the wee- 

 vil, not because it destroys them but because they don't like salt, 

 and will not go into a crib when the corn is salted. 



