1888.] Col. A. Bloomfield — Memoranchim on Gelts. 155 



No attempt seems to be at present made in any of the godowns 

 that I have visited in Calcutta or up-country to clean out and disinfect 

 them before introducing new wheat ; the native grain-dealers indeed ap- 

 pearing to have no idea whatever of the natural history of the weevil, 

 and refusing to believe that the weevils use the grains as a place for de- 

 positing their eggs, and insisting that weevils come from outside in the 

 rains and eat up the wheat. 



This being the case there seems to be every probability that by care- 

 fully disinfecting the granaries and removing all old weevily wheat before 

 introducing clean wheat, it will be possible to a great extent to do away 

 with the weevil and put a stop to its ravages. 



There seems to be a somewhat widespread idea that although 

 wheat is apparently free from weevil when it leaves the fields or the 

 village granaries, yet that it will invariably develop weevil whenever it 

 is stored so as to be exposed to the air, independently of any further 

 contamination by weevils. 



This idea is no doubt chiefly due, as has been pointed out, to the fact 

 that after the eggs are laid a period of at least about six weeks elapses 

 before anything is seen of the resulting weevils. And consequently that 

 the grain may have lain in some infested place and thus got infected 

 before ever it reached the clean godown. 



But it is also possible that in some cases the eggs of the weevil may 

 be laid in the grain when it stands in the ear, though everything I have 

 learnt about it seems to point the other way. At the same time this 

 prevailing idea militates against the adoption of the preventive mea- 

 sures which appear promising. It would seem very desirable therefore to 

 have careful experiments made in order to settle the question beyond 

 dispute. And I hope that this will be done ; several maunds of clean 

 wheat from different floors and stores in the N. W. P. and from the 

 Punjab are being sent down to Calcutta, and these I am distributing to 

 different places where there is no fear of contamination from old grain, 

 with a view to ascertaining to what extent the storage under the con- 

 ditions which would obtain in a properly kept godown will protect the 

 wheat from attack. 



On the whole it would seem that in reasonable precautions to pre- 

 vent the spread of infection will be found a practicable means of dealing 

 with a pest that at present is doing very considerable injury to the wheat 

 and rice trades in India. 



The Geneeal Secretary read the following Memorandum by Colonel 



A. Bloomfield, of Narsingpur, on Copper Celts in theBalaghat district, C. P. 



"Ever since the great discovery of Copper Celts in the Balaghat 



