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“I find in several counties of Northern Ohio, where I have 
traveled of late, a good deal of injury is done to the young wheat 
by the fly—more than has occurred before for quite a number of 
years. This is, no doubt, owing to the general practice of sowing 
wheat early, and the fact that it made a remarkably fine growth 
during September, when the warm weather was also very favorable 
for the propagation of the flies. The worms have now gone into 
the pupa or “flaxseed” state, and if the winter is not too wet or 
cold for them, it is likely the new brood next spring will prove 
quite mischievous.”—[B., Cultivator and Country Gentleman. 
“Pennsylvania German farmers have a claim to be considered 
good zoologists by their knowledge of animals, from the noble horse 
down to the insect tribe, that so beset them with labor and loss. 
The German farmers have been apt and successful in contesting the 
insect enemies of all crops. The wheat midge, which came in upon 
us twenty years ago in vast numbers the last of June and the first 
of July, made his home in the wheat-heads, and nurtured his progeny 
in the cell prepared for the expectant berry, and appropriated the 
element nature designed for the perfection of the seed to his own 
use. This insect for a time literally destroyed the wheat product. 
Whether it was. a scientific discovery that taught the farmers of 
Lancaster county how to get rid of this destructive insect or not, I 
never have learned. But I do know that I purchased and carried 
to farm Lancaster red wheat which I was instructed to sow in 
August, and in doing so freed my farm from this pest. Continued 
early sowing proved successful up to the present season, when this 
practice brought the Hessian-fly, who began at the root of the 
wheat plant. If the mother fly can get an opportunity to deposit 
its eggs in the fall season, the larva will stand the winter imbedded 
in the stalk of wheat (which is a well-tillered plant), and brings 
forth enough Hessian-fly to destroy the wheat before harvest 
time. The habit of this Hessian-fly is to bury in the ground 
with the first frost of the fall season. The Lancaster farmer said 
to me not long since, we must sow our wheat late this fall if we 
would avoid the fly. Early-sown wheat was a failure in Penn¬ 
sylvania to an extent, in my estimation, that reduces this cereal 
30 per cent, below our general average. The corn crop over the entire 
State is not an average one. The oat crop is above the average. The 
buckwheat crop, generally relied upon in the northern and western 
portions of our State as one of the paying bread grains, has been very 
extensively injured by the grasshopper, and cannot be expected to 
yield more than one-half the usual amount.”—[Y. E. Piollet’s address 
before the Berks County Agricultural Society, at Reading. 
The letter below, from W. B. Billings to the Elmira (N. Y.) 
Farmer’s Club, elicited the appended discussion, as reported in 
the Husbandman: 
“I have pursued your club reports with much interest, especi¬ 
ally those relating to the Hessian-fly. In an experience of fifteen 
years of wheat raising I have had about four acres of wheat 
destroyed by this pest. Eight years ago I sowed a field of ten 
acres to wheat, four acres of which were gravel, the remaining 
six acres being of sandy loam, in places so wet that I had to 
underdrain it. Wheat put in in good condition; land new—had 
been in cultivation only the two previous years. Now for the 
