444 
Tlie Proyress of the Hessian Flij. 
eat it down close and thus effectually clear off the insects. This 
is practised with advantage in America, but it appears that 
sheep are put on in November sometimes there, which would not 
answer in this country. 
Miss Ormerod has suggested that dressings of lime, soot, or 
salt, might be efficacious if applied to infested wheat-plants in 
the winter, and to barley-plants in the spring. A particular 
mixture of quicklime, gas-lime, soot, and sulphur is recom- 
mended as likely to check the insect in the larval state. Dres- 
sings are occasionally used in America and with some benefit, 
as Packard says, who adds, " It is evident that such remedies as 
these should be applied before the insect transforms into the 
flax-seed state, as the hard dense pupa-case is impervious to 
ordinary appliances such as would kill the maggots "* Harvae). 
Dressings put on to destroy the larvae would at the same time 
give the plants a stimulus, and enable them to resist these 
enemies. Nitrate of soda, guano, or sulphate of ammonia, 
might be employed to dress infested wheat- and barley-plants 
with advantage, since, as already stated, it has been noticed 
that the plants upon poor places in fields, and upon banks, 
felt the effects of the attack of the Hessian Fly more than 
those upon good soil where the plants were stronger and more 
vigorous. 
These methods of prevention and remedies which have been 
cited would have considerable influence in lessening the gravitv 
of an attack if they were promptly employed, and if the farmers in 
infested districts would agree to act together to carry them out. 
By some persons (not, it must be said, by farmers) it was held 
that the Government should step in and obtain compulsory 
powers to try to stamp out the insect, and to award compensa- 
tion for losses sustained in the adoption of drastic measures. 
Practical men agree that this action would have been enormously 
costly and well-nigh impossible, and that no more could have 
been done by the Government than was done. This was 
confirmed by Professor Riley, the United States entomologist, 
who came over in September to the Meeting of the British 
Association, and was much pleased with the action of the 
Agricultural Department in circulating information throughout 
the country. Not more than this was done in the United 
States, whose Agricultural Department is the most energetic 
and best equipped in the world; nor in Russia, with its 
autocratically paternal government, except that meetings of 
farmers were convened in some districts to discuss methods of 
prevention. 
♦ Oi). cit. 
