361 
No. 150.] 
serve to bind the soil together in such a manner as to retard its 
“heaving” by the frost. ( Fessenden's Complete Farmer, p. 114), 
This disaster, moreover, is guarded against in a great degree by 
sowing only upon a very fertile soil, whereby a quick and vigor¬ 
ous growth is secured, and the young plants are thus enabled to 
acquire sufficient strength of root to withstand the winter’s frosts. 
The same expedient, also, by insuring a rapid growth and an early 
maturity of the crop is the best safeguard against the rust, a dis¬ 
aster to which late props only are ordinarily liable. Upon rich 
land, therefore, scarcely any scruples need be entertained with re¬ 
gard to late sowing. If a neighboring field has been already sowed 
and the season is favorable for its vegetation, it will be safe to 
commit the seed to the ground within a week or two thereafter, 
as all the insects in the vicinity, unless they are present in immense 
swarms, will be attracted to and remain in the earlier crop. About 
the last of September is probably as late as it will be judicious to 
defer sowing wheat in this climate; and in most seasons this will 
secure it from any serious attack of the fly. Although when it 
comes forward, the season for the deposition of the eggs of the fly 
may not in some years be entirely over, it must be rare that a num¬ 
ber of these sufficiently large to be materially injurious, will be 
laid; but should that at any time be the case, other remedies still 
can thereupon be resorted to, to counteract the evil. 
3. Grazing. —This measure is alluded to as worthy of attention, 
in the first account of this insect published in this country, where 
the fact is stated, that “ by feeding the crop very close in the win¬ 
ter and spring, if the land is rich it will again spring up, and the 
worms do not much injure the second growth.” It is plain that a 
close fed crop will furnish few leaves for the fly to place its eggs 
upon, and these leaves will be commonly consumed before the eggs 
are hatched. Gen. Cocke directed public attention strongly to this 
measure in 1817, and six years subsequently states that full expe¬ 
rience had amply confirmed him in his estimate of its efficacy. — 
{American Farmer , v. 241). If in autumn it be omitted till after 
the eggs are hatched, and the worms have descended to the root, it 
can obviously be of little or no service. When, therefore, an attack 
of the fly is feared, as the exact time of the deposition of the eggs 
is somewhat variable in different seasons, it will be necessary to 
