114 
Late planting, or planting after the spring rains are over, 
would very likely prevent a repetition of the trouble. Ona 
small scale hot water could be used; this remedy has been 
found a very good one against the related, or identical, mag- 
gots that injure onions and corn. Of course where a big field 
is concerned, such aremedy would be impossible to apply. The 
coating of the seed-bean with gas-tar, blue-stone or copperas 
has been tried on a small scale, and has been found to protect 
the plant, though delaying the sprouting for some time. 
THE WHEAT-STEM MAGGOT. 
(Meromyza americana Kitch. ) 
During the time that wheat was filling it was noticed that 
many heads, instead of filling normally, gradually turned 
white. Such white heads, contrasting so strongly with the 
vivid green of the others, attracted the attention of many 
farmers and consequently a large number of inquiries in regard 
to this ‘‘new trouble” reached this office. In investigating the 
straws received it was found that invariably only the upper 
part of the plant, above the last joint, was dead. This is well 
shown in the illustration (Fig. 59, Plate 15). Cutting open this 
injured stem it was found that the interior of it had been more 
or less destroyed, and that the injury was caused by a maggot, 
which by its presence and work prevented the sap from rising, 
thus cutting off the supply that nature intended to change into 
gluten and starch. Such ‘bald heads” were by no means 
uncommon, and in some places amounted to fully 5 per cent of 
the plants, in extreme cases even one-tenth of the whole crop 
was ruined in this manner. Very few farmers had ever 
noticed such ‘‘bald heads” before, and were consequently quite 
worried about this new wheat pest. 
The wheat-stem maggot is by no means a newly arrived 
insect in this country, having been described by Fitch as early 
as 1855, though other records show that it had already injured 
wheat in Pennyslvania as early as 1821. Many recent writers 
have written about this insect and have given careful accounts 
of its natrual history. It seems that at least three annual 
broods occur in Ohio and Illinois, as proved by Profs. Webster 
and Forbes, and that still further south even more may be pro- 
duced. But these excellent accounts of the life-history of this 
