174 
E. A. OEMEKOD—THE HESSIAH FLY 
but we soon found on investigation that the straw was so totally 
crushed to render it soft for packing, that it appeared to have been 
put through a bruiser, and in this way a good percentage of .the 
chrysalids were likely to have been destroyed, if not all. But 
further, we found from information kindly given us by Mr. G. 
Becker, the great egg-importer, that the straw from the central, 
eastern, and south-eastern districts of Russia was so prepared to 
meet necessities of transmission as to ensure its freedom at the 
same time from insect presence. As any amount of damp in the 
straw would be ruinous to the eggs, which are a length of time in 
transmission, every possible precaution is taken to ensure that it 
should be perfectly dry , and for this reason it is dried on racks in 
heated chambers.* 
After months of investigation it appeared proved that though 
Hessian-fly flaxseeds certainly could come in straw, there was no 
reason to believe that it was in this way that they were being 
transmitted to us, and so far as we see at present the most likely 
way for them to arrive is in the rubbish of which such a great 
amount is transmitted in corn cargoes. 
The specimens shown are samples of some of the different kinds 
of screenings which are separated from wheat imported from various 
countries before this wheat is fit to be ground by our millers. 
The wheat from Southern Russia and from Egypt is especially 
known to be deteriorated by much admixture of material other 
than pure grain. During the past season I was favoured with 
communications on this head from some of the chief corn-factors at 
our great ports, such as Liverpool, Hull, Gloucester, and other 
places, from which it appears, as I have noted at length in my 
recently-published report, that a very detrimental quantity of 
admixture (purposely, or through want of proper care, present in 
the cargoes) arrives here as a regular thing. 
One of my reporters mentioned regarding Russian wheats, and 
more especially South Russian wheat, for Russia in some parts 
ships cleaner than she did, that “this impurity consists of pieces 
of dirt, rye, cockle, oil seed, vetches, thin shrivelled grains of 
wheat, and frequently stones, etc.” The lower qualities of Odessa 
and Azov wheat would contain not less than 40 per cent, of im¬ 
purities, mainly rye. Where, as in the River-Plate wheat, it is 
threshed or rather trodden out by horses being driven round on it, 
the presence of stones and a variety of extraneous and undesirable 
material in the grain shipped need cause no surprise. 
I need not weary you with details of the condition of wheat 
received from various exporting countries, but it is obvious that 
where such an amount of dirt, rubbish, bad grain, weed seed, etc., 
comes with the corn, it is no wonder that much insect presence, 
some of which is only too plainly to be seen, and is a well-known 
* I have mentioned this more especially as giving an example of the many 
points for investigation which are constantly occurring in running up the methods 
of prevention of an insect-pest, more especially when it is one which like the 
Hessian fly may he said to be almost a world-wide trouble. 
