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many of the wheat plants. Burning stubble after harvest has been at¬ 
tended with good effects on the subsequent crop. Wood ashes sown on 
the wheat in the fall and spring, seems to destroy great numbers of the 
little grubs. Any means to render the growth of the grain rank and 
luxuriant enables it to withstand their attacks. A fire built on the lee 
side of the field at evening by which the smoke will be blown over it, 
and settle in clouds close to the ground, has proved partially effective. 
There are large armies of parasitical insects that feed on the eggs and 
larvae of the Hessian fly—one of the wise and kind provisions of nature 
to check and destroy the scourges that are occasionally permitted to visit 
and afflict the earth. 
The European wheat fly has appeared in some parts of New England, 
and has proved very injurious in localities. It is a small orange colored 
gnat, with long legs and tinted wings. They appear from the first of 
June till late in August. In the morning and evening duskiness they 
deposit their eggs in the flower of the grain. The eggs hatch in about 
eight days, and little yellow maggots, otherwise known as the grain worm 
or weevil, appear in the chaffy scales of the young berry. They live on 
the pollen and on the soft milky matter which they extract from the base 
of the green seed. In consequence of their depredations, the kernels are 
but partly filled and pinched, the hull breaking open in the process of 
drying and shrinking, after the contents have been sucked out. Towards 
the end of July, or the first of August, the grub is full grown, fat and 
round. It then leaves its outer skin, and falls from the heads of wheat 
to the ground. After remaining in a torpid state for a few days, it bur¬ 
rows in the earth a short distance from the surface, and there winters. 
The following spring the winged insect emerges from the ground to de- 
posite the germs for a succeeding brood. 
Fumigation has been practised with partial success as a remedy for this 
insect. Weeds, old woolen rags and brimstone have been used for the 
purpose. Lime or ashes strewn over the grain in blossom has had a 
good effect. Deep plowing after harvest, and when the maggots have 
fallen to the ground, by which they are covered so deep as to be unable 
to emerge the following spring, is probably the most effectual remedy. 
The chinch-bug is a virulent little insect that has proved somewhat in¬ 
jurious to the wheat crop in the southern and eastern parts of this State. 
