THE CULTIVATOR. 
99 
to or inserted into the kernel of grain, may have its principle of vita¬ 
lity destroyed by coming' into contact with lime, and for this reason 
he recommends that the grain that is to be sown should be immers¬ 
ed in lime water, or have lime sprinkled upon it, to make the worm 
innocuous. The remedy is easy, and if effectual, it is the fault of 
every farmer when he becomes acquainted with the antidote, il the 
grain worm above described by Mr. Bauer is identical with the one 
which is committing its ravages here, if the evil is not immediately 
arrested. The application of lime to seed wheat is, under any cir¬ 
cumstances, advisable ; for, apart from its powers to destroy the vi¬ 
tality of such animalculse as might adhere to the grain to its injury, 
it produces a stimulating and quickening cffl ct, which will cause a 
more active growth of the plant. But will lime water be sufficiently 
caustic to answer the purpose of Mr. Bauer ? It is well known that 
water will take up only a certain and small portion of lime, and no 
matter how largo the quantity used, the strength of the lime water 
is not increased. That the quantity of lime so dissolved is small, 
we must know, from the fact that it may be taken into tiie human 
stomach with very little farther dilution. The remedy of lime water 
diluted with an equal quantity of milk, for certain states of disorder¬ 
ed stomach, is too well and has been too long known to require fur¬ 
ther remark, and if causticity is required in treating of the present 
subject, we would have it in a much greater degree by adopting the 
English method for the prevention of smut in wheat—that is, to soak 
the wheat intended to be sown in urine or brine for a day—at night 
remove the grain to the barn floor, take as much unslaked lime as 
would be required, slake it, and as soon as done sift it or throw as 
much upon it with a shovel, while the heat is passing off, as will ad¬ 
here to the wet wheat, stirring the wheat well at the same time. 
This wheat so mixed is to remain one night and be sown the next 
day. The slaking lime cannot be so hot but when mixed with cold 
wheat that it will prevent it from germinating. We would there¬ 
fore advise it to be thrown on as soon after slaking as possible, be¬ 
cause no injury can arise from it. To what point the principle of 
heating wheat without destroying its vitality can be carried, we will 
soon see, as we now come to speak of the weevil. 
The weevil in natural history is thus described : “ It is a small 
insect which does great damage in magazines of corn, by eating in¬ 
to the several grains and destroying their whole substance. This 
creature is somewhat bigger than a large louse, and is of the scarab 
or beetle kind, having two pretty, jointed, tufted horns, and a trunk 
or piercer projecting from the fore part of its head: at the end of 
this trunk, which is very long in proportion to its body, there is a 
sort of forceps or sharp teeth with which it gnaws its way into the 
heart of the grain, either to seek its food or to deposite its eggs there. 
By keeping these creatures alive in glass tubes with a few grains of 
wheat, their manner of reproduction has been discovered. The fe¬ 
male perforates a grain of wheat, and in it deposites a single egg, or 
at the utmost two eggs, and this she does to five or six grains every 
day, for several days together. These eggs, which are not larger 
than a grain of sand, in about a week produce an odd sort of white 
maggot, which wriggles its body very much about, but is very little 
able to move from place to place : this, in about a fortnight, turns to 
an aurelia, from which is produced the perfect weevil. This de¬ 
structive creature is itself very subject to be destroyed, and when in 
the egg or aurelia state, it is eaten by mites.” This insect is ex¬ 
tremely common in England, and its ravages, not only there, but 
over a large portion of Europe and many of our southern states, have 
been almost incredible. It is said the larvae inhabit the ploughed 
lands and feed on the roots of corn. The complete insect makes its 
appearance in the beginning of summer, but its appropriate place 
is in magazines of corn. Still they have been known in such quan¬ 
tities as to strip trees of their foliage, and to produce mischiefs ap¬ 
proaching to the devastation occasioned by the locust tribe. The 
larvae, according to well informed naturalists, is two, and sometimes 
three years in passing from its first state into that of the perfect in¬ 
sect. The eggs are laid in small detached heaps, beneath the sur¬ 
face of some clod : and the young, when first hatched, are scarcely 
more than the eighth of an inch in length, gradually advancing in 
their growth, and occasionally shifting their skins, till they arrive 
at the size of two inches or more. At this period they begin to pre¬ 
pare for their change in a chrysalis or - pupa, selecting for the pur¬ 
pose some small clod of earth, in which they form an ova 1 , cavity, 
and, after a certain space, divest themselves of their last skin, and 
appear in the chrysalis form, in which they continue till the succeed¬ 
ing summer, when the beetle emerges from its retirement and com¬ 
mits its depredations on the leaves of trees and other things that it 
selects for its food, breeds, and deposites its eggs in a favorable situa¬ 
tion ; after which, its life is of short duration. 
It is evident from the description of the grain worm given by Bau¬ 
er, and of the weevil, as taken from the best authorities, that al¬ 
though they may be allied or belong to the same order, they are not 
(T the same genus, as they are dissimilar in many points. How far 
the worm or insect which has committed its ravages here may be¬ 
long to either or to other orders, farther observation must determine; 
still Bauer’s description of the worm he has noticed comes much 
nearer than any other account we have yet seen of this destructive 
animal. 
As a remedy to stop the injury of weevil in a magazine of corn, it 
is discovered that the most effectual is steaming, and there are some 
interesting particulars of the process and its effects related in some 
English reports upon agriculture. It not only stops the progress of 
the weevil, but so effectually destroys it in all its states, that the 
grain which has been submitted to this process is used for sowing, and 
is considered quite clean, as without a new application of the germ 
of weevil in the ensuing crop it will not again make its appearance. 
Steaming, they say, does not injure the germination of wheat. Re¬ 
peated experiments to that effect have been made, and always with 
the same re-ult. It follows, therefore, that the heat engendered in 
slaking lime cannot be made so great, under the circumstances in 
which it is applied to wheat, that is preparing with it to be sown, 
that its vital principle can in any event be impaired. Hot lime might 
prove as efficient a remedy for weevil as for the grain worm describ¬ 
ed by Mr. Bauer. A. 
EXPENSE OF CURING HAY. 
An accurate account of expense in different operations of farming, 
has heretofore been so little attended to, that in making out an es¬ 
timate of costs of any one process of the many that are to be per¬ 
formed, the farmer has to be governed more by conjecture than by 
any rule of correct calculation. This deficiency is owing to his own 
neglect, and if he now suffers, as he must necessarily, from the evil, 
a little time and pains are all that are required to enable him here¬ 
after to count the cost of any one process he may wish to have per¬ 
formed. It is as important to the farmer to know what ought to be 
the reasonable cost to have a piece of work done, as it is for the 
manufacturer to calculate the expense per pound or per yard of card¬ 
ing, spinning or weaving, and as we are well assured, that if the last 
is unacquainted with the expense of each of these processes, he is 
totally incompetent to carry on his business successfully. It is the 
same with the mechanic, and that one only, at this day, becomes 
wealthy, who is competent to make a correct account of profit and 
loss. Where a farmer does all his own work, it may not be so ne¬ 
cessary to keep a debtor or creditor account, but when job work is 
to be done, as it must in a variety of cases, accuracy of cost is es¬ 
sential to the interest of all engaged. We do not hesitate to say, 
that a man who would keep a correct account of all the expenses 
and labor upon a farm, giving a separate page to each laborer, each 
lot, each horse, ox and cow, with the profits derived from each, and 
this system kept up for successive years, and extended throughout 
his whole arrangement, and published, would aid more directly the 
class of community to which he belonged, and it would give rise to 
more beneficial results, than the present opening of new canals, or 
originating other great improvements. We would then be furnish¬ 
ed with a guide or table, from which we could calculate the expense 
of each operation and cla-s of husbandry, and settle the many prin¬ 
ciples which are now left 1o reason, and, in many cases, to conjec¬ 
ture. It has been for many years, and is yet, a disputed point 
among the most intelligent farmers, whether the raising of grain or 
stock, where there are proportionate facilities for each, is most con¬ 
ducive to their interest, and we do not see that the controversy can 
be settled in any way, except by keeping the debtor and creditor 
account we have mentioned. It is useless to enlarge upon the sub¬ 
ject. Doubt and uncertainty will always rest upon it, and we suffer 
from a continuance of the evil, until we adopt a better and more sys¬ 
tematic manner of calculating all our expenses and profits. Our 
object at this time is, to give the expense of curing hay, and it is as 
accurate as circumstances would allow. It would be better could 
we estimate the cost per ton, but as a farmer has not the conveni¬ 
ences, and does not weigh the hay intended for his own consump¬ 
tion, it would be difficult to say, with certainty, what is the cost of 
curing by weight. It is a common observation, however, that tweu- 
