WHEAT BULK FLY. 
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field adjoining. It is after fallow again that the attack comes. Mr. 
Dring knows the form of attack and the maggot well.” 
On the 4th of May, Mr. Eardley Mason wrote to me further on the 
subject:—“ I inspected the field at Cumberwortli, which I spoke of. 
The change in its appearance is great. On the 4th of April a full 
healthy plant with no outward sign of attack : on the 1st May a scene 
of destruction. Over the greater part of the field one-half the plants are 
destroyed, and that past redemption. The larvae were very nearly 
full-fed, but not many, I think, had pupated, for no puparia were 
found.” 
The above notes, it will be seen, refer to presence in the East of 
England. On the 2nd of May specimens of Wheat plants infested by 
the H. coarctata maggots were sent me from the South-west of 
England—from Corfe Hill, Weymouth—by Mr. E. B. Thresher, with 
the observation that the maggots were rapidly destroying the infested 
piece of Wheat. In this case the uninjured shoots were about or 
upwards of six inches long. 
The observations forwarded this year do not help us to any further 
information as to means of dealing with this attack, but are of interest 
as showing the serious nature of the infestation ; also its continued 
yearly appearance, and possibly the special presence in the marsh 
lands in Essex may be worth observation in connection with the 
report, sent to me in 1888, of hundreds of acres being destroyed by 
attack of this Wheat-bulb maggot in the Cambridgeshire Fens. 
The following precise report of loss on infested crop, with which I 
was favoured by Mr. Michael Ellison, of Barber Woodhouse, on 
Dec. 27th, 1889, is a very serviceable addition, as being one of the 
definite records of direct loss by insect agency, which are so valuable 
to possess and so difficult to procure. I was sorry not to insert it 
in the year’s report on Wheat-bulb maggot, to which it belongs, 
but the paper was then in type. I now give it in Mr. Ellison’s own 
words :— 
“ In our correspondence last year respecting the Wheat-bulb 
maggot, in one of my letters I used words (quoted in your pamphlet) 
to this effect, ‘ I trust that the Corn that remains may yield more 
abundantly to make up for that which is lost,’ .... It may interest 
you to know the result of the cropping and yield, which I have just 
lately learned from the tenant. From one field of 8£ acres there was 
no ‘ first ’ Corn ; only 3 loads, or 9 bushels per acre, of ‘ seconds.’ The 
other field of 12 acres yielded 16 sacks of 4 bushels each of ‘ firsts,’ 
and of * seconds ’ same as above, viz., 8 loads per acre. You will see, 
therefore, that my wish expressed last year has certainly not been 
realised, and the results, as above described, show very forcibly what 
power for mischief the little maggot possesses.” 
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