STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
819 
ANGOUMOIS MOTH. REMEDIES. HESSIAN FLY. ITS HISTORY. 
cylinder, analogous to a common utensil there in use for roasting 
coffee. Into this the infested grain is put, and the instrument is 
placed over a fire and revolved, heating the grain to a tempera¬ 
ture of 57° to G0° Reaumur. Experiments made by a committee 
of the Agricultural Society of Cher in France, showed that -with 
this machine all the insects in the grain were killed and dried in 
50 minutes time, and at an expense of less than a farthing per 
bushel; and the grain thus dried is never afterwards attacked 
by these insects, even though it be mixed with other infested 
grain. 
Dr. Herpin, who has made this insect a special study, thinks 
that simple friction and agitation of the grain will suffice to kill 
the worms within it. He remarks, “I think I have made a dis¬ 
covery of a very easy and very economical process for destroying 
the Alucita (Butalis cereulellu) in its different states. It is by 
means of an Agitator or shaking-machine, furnished with little 
wooden or iron wings, and propelled with very great velocity 
(making GOO revolutions a minute). The shakings and concus¬ 
sions which the grain receives in passing in this machine are so 
quick and so multiplied, that the eggs are broken or detached 
from the grain, and the insect is mauled and killed even in the 
interior of the grain where it is enclosed. I had previously 
observed that some grain containing living larva? of the Alucita, 
shaken briskly by the hand in a glass bottle for an hour, has pro¬ 
duced only a small number of moths, compared with those which 
came out of the same grain which had not been submitted to this 
agitation.’-’ 
7. Hessian fly, Cecidomyia destructor , Say. (Diptera Tipulidm.) 
Plate 3, fig. 2, the male; fig. 3, the female. 
Small white maggots lying at the crown of the roots of young wheat plants, causing them 
o turn yellow and die; and also at the lower joints of the straw causing it to break and lop 
own; these maggots hardening and turning brown and thon resembling flax seeds, from 
which como black flics or midges 0.15 long with smoky wings. 
dhis is a European insect and has been detected in Germany, 
I lance and Italy, where it has at times committed severe depre¬ 
dations upon the wheat crops. Written accounts which appear 
to refer to it date so far back as the year 1732. It was brought 
to this country, probably in some straw used in package, by the 
Hessian soldiers who landed on Staten and the west end of Long 
Island, August 1776, but did not become so multiplied as to 
