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Sowing the field with lime at the time the wheat is in blossom, 
has been repeatedly, and by some with much confidence, urged. 
This remedy has been much resorted to, and very conflicting state- 
ments with regard to its efficacy have been laid before the public. 
A simple experiment, directly to the point, is of more value than a 
thousand cases that tend to support any particular opinion ; and 
such an experiment I am prepared to narrate. Jarvis Martin, Esq., 
the owner of the infested field repeatedly alluded to, at my sug- 
gestion, repaired to it one evening, and sprinkled several of the 
heads with tolerably fresh air-slaked lime, until they were white 
with the powder adhering to them; thus applying it far more pro- 
fusely and effectually than can be accomplished by any “ sowing” 
of this substance. With the light of a lantern, these heads were 
now closely watched, and the flies were observed to hover around 
and alight upon them as freely, and insert their ovipositors with the 
same readines that they did upon the contiguous heads that were 
not thus treated. I deem this experiment sufficient to put to rest the 
much mooted question with regard to the utility of lime as a shield 
against the wheat-fly. 
A yet more prominent, and much more plausible mode of enabling 
the wheat to escape injury from the fly, is, sowing the seed at such 
times as will prevent its being in blossom at the period when the 
insect appears. With this view, it is recommended to sow winter 
wheat much earlier than was ordinarily done, that it may be so far 
matured the following season at the time of the appearance of the 
fly, as to be invulnerable to it ; and spring wheat, so late as not to 
be in blossom until the fly has finished depositing its eggs. This 
plan has been much relied upon, on both sides of the Atlantic, and 
I have been heretofore disposed to regard it as probably the most 
feasible of any — though by avoiding Scylla we were in danger of 
Charybdis — for early sown winter wheat invites a return of the 
hessian-fly, and late sown spring wheat is almost certain in this 
vicinity to be attacked by “the rust” (Puccinia graminis). Nu- 
merous instances, moreover, can be adduced which tend much to 
support the utility of this measure. One of these, as strong as any 
that has come to my knowledge, I may here state. In a field of 
spring wheat of my own, raised in 1843, every kernel in the top of 
almost every head was entirely destroyed, whilst the lower two- 
thirds or three-fourths of the ears were wholly uninjured. I could 
