120 DISEASES OF CROPS. 



the soil to the adjacent wheat plants, ascend the stalk 

 until they reach the flowers, where the attack com- 

 mences. 



Prevention. — (1) The land should be well drained, for 

 these pests love moisture. (2) The farmer should use 

 every precaution. If once his farm is infested with this 

 pest, he will find great difficulty in exterminating it. 

 Fortunately the galls containing the "worms" are easily 

 detected (being black and only half the size of wheat- 

 grains) among seed-wheat ; but they are not all separated 

 from the chaff by winnowing, for many are blown over 

 with the chaff, and thus propagate the pests when put on 

 the land with the manure. When the cottony mass from 

 a quantity of wheat affected with ear-cockle is extracted 

 in the grinding process, it does not kill these minute 

 organisms, so that they are cast aside with the bran, and 

 thus too often find their way back to the fields. Grain 

 that is only roughly ground for farm animals is still more 

 liable to be a means of spreading the pest. As stated 

 before, numbers of ear-cockles are blown over during the 

 process of winnowing ; and under such circumstances, 

 the chaff contains a whole host of what will prove to be, 

 if caution is not practised, parents of a future generation. 

 The only way to destroy them is to burn the chaff. (3) 

 Top-dressing the land with the following mixed manure — 

 1 cwt. each of kainit, nitrate of soda, superphosphate of 

 lime, and 1| cwt. of salt per acre- — proved most beneficial 

 (for wheat) on certain farms previously infested with this 

 pest. 



The Wheat Milliped (Julus londinensis), like J. 

 terrestris (already described), is one of the so-called false 

 wire-worms. The wheat milliped has shorter antennae 

 than Julus terrestris, and, unlike the latter species, the 



