1858, 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
335 
The Wheat Midge. 
If, with reference to human affairs, the poet has 
found reason to exclaim, 
“ What dire effects from trifling causes spring ?’ 
the naturalist and the farmer have equal reason to be 
astonished at the apparently insignificant means an 
all-wise Providence employs for producing the most 
important results. Who would believe that a little fly 
about the sixe of a mosquito, could almost rule the 
destiny of a nation, and annually cut short the wheat 
crops of this country to the amount of millions upon 
millions 1 It would be impossible to estimate with any 
degree of accuracy the loss sustained by the farmers 
of the United States, within the past ten years, by the 
ravages of the wheat midge. Some twenty years ago 
the Maine Farmer stated “ that a million of dollars, 
nay, more money, would not pay the damage it had 
done to the State of Maine alone.” Subsequent 
calculations are given, whereby it appears that in the 
western part of Vermont the amount of destruction 
caused by the wheat midge, “ may be set down at 
three and a half millions of dollars 
If such losses had occurred in the wheat crops, by 
the ravages of the midge, in Maine and Vermont some 
twenty years ago, what must be the sum total of loss 
sustained by the farmers of this country since that 
time, in consequence of the vastly greater range of 
territory infested by the midge, and much of that ter¬ 
ritory heretofore the finest wheat producing sections of 
the country, if not of the world 1 
The earliest published account of this insect is con¬ 
tained in a letter by Mr. C. Gullet, published in the 
Philosophical Transactions, England, for 1772. Mr. 
G ’s letter gives a short but very correct history of the 
winged insect, the orange colored midge, and its de¬ 
struction of the grain. He says, “ the fly is so proli¬ 
fic that I last week distinctly counted forty-one living 
yellow maggots in the husk of one single grain of 
wheat.” 
From 1772 down to the present time, the midge has 
been known as injuring the wheat crop in some one or 
other sections of England and Scotland. Prof. Hens- 
low, in his Report on the diseases of wheat, 1841, 
says that about twenty years ago the insect was much 
more destructive. Since Mr. Gorrie stated that the 
loss sustained by the farming interest in the Carse of 
Gowrie b^ this insect alone, amounted to no less than 
£36,000 in 1829. It seems there is great difference in 
the amount of damage done by the midge in the same 
districts in different years. Mr. Gorrie says : “ The 
number of flies produced appears to depend partly on 
the quantity of maggots deposited in the soil the pre¬ 
vious autumn, and partly on the occurrence of a mild 
temperature about the middle of June when the 
wheat ear partially appears. Unless the weather be 
serene and dry, with the thermometer above 54° Fah. 
at night, (the period when the eggs are deposited in 
in the chaff scales,) few or none of them are deposited, 
which may account for the manner in which its depre¬ 
dations have diminished since 1830 ” He also adverts 
to the check given to the propagation of the insect, 
even in favorable weather, by the operations of a small 
beetle which destroys the maggot. He also recom¬ 
mends burying the surface of the ground containing 
the maggot at the bottom of the furrow by the means 
of the skim-plow. 
In a paper in the English Ag Society’s Journal, 
1845, by Mr. Curtis, he says, “ the wheat midge has 
been observed in Scotland and Ireland, as well as in a 
great many counties in England;” but ‘‘three differ¬ 
ent parasites check the multiplication of the British 
wheat midge.” 
It is now eighty years since Mr. Gullet gave a cor¬ 
rect description of the wheat midge, having “ counted 
forty-one living maggots in the husk of one single 
grain of wheat,” and from that time to this, they have 
been spread over the wheat-growing sections of the 
British Isles. But we think the injury sustained by 
the wheat crops there, by the depredations of the 
midge, have been trifling compared to the loss inflicted 
upon the American farmers by the ravages of the in¬ 
sect, and it is now only about thirty years since it first 
attracted notice in this country. 
To our view, there seems to be several reasons why 
the increase and ravages of the midge in England, 
have been restrained to a much greater extent than 
in this country. First, the lower temperature of the 
weather in England at the time the wheat is in blos¬ 
som. Mr. <*orrie -says the temperature must be as high 
as 54 degrees at night, in order that the fly may de¬ 
posit its eggs. This temperature, perhaps, may scarce¬ 
ly occur in some seasons, while the wheat is in the situ¬ 
ation to be injured. Secondly, they have three kinds 
of parasites there that prey upon the maggots—the 
orange colored midge—this may tend very much to¬ 
wards lessening their numbers. We are not aware 
that there is any parasite in this country that destroys 
the midge, though it is said the yellow-bird feeds upon 
them—if so, they cannot very much lessen their num¬ 
bers. Sdly, the more general turning under the stubble 
after harvest than in this country. In New England, 
probably nine-tenths of the land sown with wheat, is 
at the same time sown with grass seeds. The midge, 
when matured in the heads of the grain, obeying the 
instincts of nature, leaves its chaffy tenement, falls to 
the ground, entering it from half an inch to two inches. 
In the unplowed stubble field they remain secure and 
undisturbed till the next season, when having changed 
from the grub to that of the winged insect, they are 
prepared for the propagation and perpetuity of their 
species—but this is at the expense of the wheat crop. 
Could the wheat stubble after harvest all be turned 
under by the plow, as proposed by Judge Cheever, 
to the depth of eight or ten inches, and then firmly 
pressed down with a heavy roller, and the inverted 
stubble left undisturbed, doubtless but few if any of 
the insects would ever again see the light of day. But 
the great trouble in an enterprise of this kind, would 
be to get concert of action among the farmers over any 
considerable tract of country. It would be of little 
avail for the farmers of one county to plow in their 
stubble, for the midge has spread over the country in 
every direction, “ at the rate of twenty or thirty miles 
a year” 
Says Dr. Harris, “ the wheat fly is said to have been 
first seen in America about the year 1828, in the 
northern part of Vermont and on the borders of Lower 
Canada. From these places its ravages have gradually 
extended, in various directions, from year to year. In 
course of a few years it had visited a considerable por¬ 
tion of Upper Canada, of New-York, New Hampshire, 
and Massachusetts, and in 1834 it appeared in Maine, 
