88 
CORN. 
manure, excepting the square cornered portion marked 1 (see plan, 
p. 85), which was dressed with mud from a pond gone dry, this portion 
suffered so much more than any other part of the field that it was 
plainly observable to a yard where the mud was put.—W. P. Head¬ 
lands not thinned by attack (and in 1882 it was observed that it left a 
belt near the hedge untouched). “ Almost all fallow fields suffered 
more or less.” After Swedes that had been badly attacked by 
caterpillar. 
As the attack of Hylemia, or “ Wheat-bulb maggot,” is one which 
appears often to be locally troublesome, though rarely—if ever before 
—to the serious extent to which it occurred in last year (that is, in 
1888), I have given the accounts received in almost full detail, as I 
believe that it is only from notes taken by agriculturists themselves 
of what occurs to their crops under special circumstances, that we can 
hope to work out practicable measures of prevention. 
Last year was exceptional in its first half regarding many kinds of 
insect appearance, which may conjecturally be attributed to the peculiar 
summer season of 1887, peculiarly favourable as it was for multiplica¬ 
tion of many kinds of insect. But in ordinary seasons (it appears) 
that not putting in Wheat after summer fallow—or perhaps one might 
state it, not putting in Wheat until the summer brood of this Hylemia 
coarctata has passed away—is one means of prevention of this attack ; 
it also appears especially to infest land where Swedes have preceded 
Wheat, and to be especially likely to occur on land where pond manure 
has been spread ; but with this attack, as well as with the Frit Fly, 
we need to know where and how the summer brood lives. If we knew 
where the Flies which we see emerging from the chrysalids about the 
beginning of July laid their eggs, and where and how the maggots 
from these fed, we should know how to get rid of the nurseries of the 
autumn or winter egg-laying, which produces the troubles of the 
following spring and early summer. 
“ White-eared ” Wheat. 
During the middle of the summer—that is, at intervals from about 
July 6th to August 10th—enquiries were sent regarding the cause of a 
peculiar attack, which was observed in so many places that it soon 
was described under the special name of “ White-eared Wheat.” 
The injured heads, of which many specimens were forwarded, 
usually seemed at first sight to be all right, excepting being prematurely 
ripened ; but on examination the ears were totally barren, and the top 
of the stem was usually severed across about three or four inches 
above the uppermost knot, so that though the injury did not show 
externally, yet, by holding the lower part of the stem and gently 
