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“It is claimed by some that certain varieties of wheat are less 
liable to the attacks of the Hessian-fly, and entire exemption has 
been claimed for some. I am satisfied from experience that these 
claims are partially fallacious. There is no wheat which the fly will 
not injure under favorable conditions for its working. The supposed 
exemption is due to the fact, that when a weak-growing and strong¬ 
growing variety are sown side by side, the fly leaves the latter for 
the former. Whatever makes the wheat plant vigorous, helps to 
repel the attacks of all insect enemies. If the red sorts are less 
liable to injury, it is because their thicker and ranker leaves keep 
. the plant too moist for the eggs and larvae. I have seen the same 
result from the use of superphospate, gypsum, salt, and in fact any 
manure which causes vigorous growth, with dampness. Coarse 
manure sometimes seems to favor the insect, but only, I imagine, 
when the weather is so dry that its coarse strawy substance is really 
more dry than the ground. Wherever the soil is moist, and wheat 
makes a rapid growth, the fly will do least damage. I shall take 
advantage of this fact, this fall, in fertilizing my wheat more liber¬ 
ally than ever before, using two hundred, or perhaps more pounds, 
of phosphate per acre, besides gypsum and salt to dilute it. If I 
can get a vigorous growth of wheat from the start, there will be 
less to fear Irom the fly. This liberal manuring will also enable me 
to defer sowing till later than would otherwise be safe. 
“Rolling and compacting the ground is very important as a means 
of keeping it moist. I shall not roll immediately after sowing, but 
wait until the wheat* is up, when, if there is a dry time with no 
frosts to keep back the fly, I shall roll the ground with the hope 
that the roller will destroy at least some of the eggs which the fly 
may have laid. W. J. F.” 
Monroe County, New York. 
—[Cultivator and Country Gentleman. 
In the rapidly increasing practice of extra manuring and cultivation 
of wheat, as by drilling and hoeing, it is found in very many cases 
that the Hessian-fly and other insects are far less troublesome than 
on the wheat fields where only ordinary cultivation is practiced. It 
frequently occurs, too, that superior cultivation permits of earlier 
sowing in the fall; the extra growth more than offsetting the damage 
done by the insects, to avoid which most farmers now are obliged 
to resort to late planting. Several examples are cited when drilled 
and cultivated fields, grown beside ordinary broadcast-sown and 
lightly-manured fields, with results wholly in favor of the former, 
the Hessian-fly greatly damaging if not totally destroying the latter, 
while the cultivated fields escaped almost unharmed.— [Cultivator 
and Country Gentleman. 
Pasturing with sheep .—Many farmers practice pasturing wheat 
fields with sheep or cattle; for it it is claimed that if the wheat is 
strong enough by the middle or end of November to bear it, enough 
of the larvae or flaxseeds may thus be destroyed to save the wheat 
and prevent the necessity of plowing it in. This is a rather rude, un¬ 
certain remedy, but can be carried on with more or less success in the 
Middle States. We give the opinions of those who have found 
pasturing successful. 
