STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
295 
covered the ground until sometime in June, and was not ready to 
cut until 29th of July, later than I ever knew it in thirty-seven 
years, the remarkable season of 1836 excepted. I commenced on 
the 29th of July that year also, but had a good crop, which was 
the only full crop I ever had that was not fully ripe by 17th 
of July. 
I sow salt liberally on my wheat which generally hastens the 
maturity about four days, and that may almost save the crop from 
the midge. I would state that my wheat crop during the time 
of midge has been from fifty to eighty acres; this season only 
forty-four, but this autumn I will sow sixty acres. Wore my land 
not underdravied I could not raise wheat any better than many in 
this county who have abandoned wheat as a crop. If wheat 
could be got nearly ripe by the 10th of July the loss from midge, 
I think, would not be great, and nothing but underdraining and a 
higher grade of farming to bring the wheat earlier forward, is the 
only way I can see for continuing the wheat culture in this State. 
We have never been one year free of the midge since 1848. In 
1855 I found only a little and that only around the fences or on 
some spot not throughly drained. 
A number of years ago, perhaps about thirty, the heads of 
wheat were injured, resembling the heads injured by midge, but 
it was not midge, but a small white worm which did considerable 
damage. The following year we still had a few, but since I have 
never seen them. 
Barley, I am told, is often injured by midge. I seldom grow 
that crop; when I have, I have not seen any midge in it. 
The Mediterranean wheat is least hurt by midge, but no wheat 
escapes it. Crops on dry land and on hilly land are less liable to be 
injured than in sheltered places. I have heard of many remedies, 
such as sowing lime as the wheat comes in ear, going through the 
field with torches during the time of midge ; but I have been only 
using preventives, and not cures. I have not known of any parasite 
insect destroying the midge. A small bird picks a great many of 
the larvae out of the heads of the wheat and I am told they have 
been killed and their crops found full of it. 
, There has been very little damage by Hessian fly. In 1831 it 
was very destructive to me, and again in 1844, being the only 
times in thirty-seven crops. But we have in this neighborhood 
some loss this year by a clear white worm in the root. It has 
taken, almost totally, some of the best looking wheat I ever saw 
at the same season of the year; it commenced its depredations 
