Farming of Oxfordshire. 
213 
from the tropical heat of July being followed by many very 
heavy thunder showers. When such variety of opinion prevails 
as to the causes of mildew, of course the remedies also must be 
tentative and conjectural. However, the advice not to manure 
highly for wheat in soils subject to mildew, and so to avoid 
causing too much luxuriance in early growth, and to sow the seed 
thick and moderately early, may be safely acted on. 
If mildew was bad in 1852, not less destructive last year was 
the wheat-midge. Doubtless the w^heats all blossomed in a 
wretched season. There was either Avind or rain, or both com- 
bined throughout June and July, and the blossom in many fields 
was hardly visible ; but on many evenings in last June the 
attentive observer might have seen on the early wheats myriads 
of these tiny gnats busily engaged in laying their eggs in the 
blossom of the ears. The eggs produce little yellow maggots, 
which prey upon the young grain, and may easily be found in 
the ears by pulling back the chaff-scales. A good account of 
this little parasite (to which entomologists have given the name 
of cecidomyia tritici) is found in the second part of the sixth 
volume of the Society's Journal. The damage caused by the 
midge last year is something fearful, and, were it not for ich- 
neumon and other flies that prey upon it, would be most dis- 
astrous. But man can also assist in its destruction. The little 
yellow maggot may be seen in the chaff-dust, and it appears that 
they must enter the ground before they assume the chrysalis 
condition. All wheat-chaff that is given to stock should for their 
benefit be freed from its dust by riddling, and this dust, instead 
of being thrown in some corner, should be burned, and thus some 
of the larvae of this little pest would be destroyed. 
The harvest operations are often more protracted than in the 
east of England, as the late oats and spring beans are usually 
behind the other corn in coming to maturity. Men are not hired 
by the harvest, but the cutting is performed by the acre, and 
the carrying by the day. Men receive from 2s. to 2s. %d. per 
day ; a large allowance of beer being also given. The wheat in 
the south of the county is all fagged. The straw is cut close to 
the ground with a fagging hook, and the sheaves are neatly 
made. Fagging costs from 8s. to 10s. per acre, and the reaping, 
which is common north of Oxford, is sometimes done for Is. less 
per acre. When hand-reaped a long stubble is left, which is 
afterwards mown or beaten down with long poles, raked up, and 
carried into the yards. Oats are generally fagged ; and although 
some are mown, most of these are afterwards tied up. Beans 
are likewise cut with a fagging hook for 8s, or 9s., and some 
farmers fag a large quantity of barley ; this, as well as oats, costs 
8s. or 10s. an acre, but it is carted with much less trouble than 
