The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-09-27
:Tmhe EARN,
The Hessian Fly and Our Next Wheat Crop.

The Hessian Fly and Our Next Wheat Crop.
1t is matter of some solicitude with
farmers in localities where the Hessan
fly destroyed the wheat crop last season,
to know whether it will be likely to
commit the same depredations the COM
ing season, and whether we can sow
wheat as usual with any expectation of
getting remunerative crop. This is
a question that no one can answer with
any positive assurance, as the character
of the season will alone determine.
Almost all insects that prey upon the
products of the farm and blight the
hopes of the husbandman, are periodical
in their visits of destruction, and per-
haps none are more so than the Hessian
fly
These periodical visits are due to no
law in insect life, nor to any periodical
increase in propagation, Independent of
circumstances. 1t is not known to all
observers that insects of nearly all kinds,
and especially flies, are much more
numerous and troublesome in warm,
dry seasons, than in more moist and
cooler ones, and it is due to this differ
ence in the seasons alone that greater
damage is done by them some seasons
than in others.
OF all the numerous catalogue OF
insects that have preyed upon our crops
or fruits, few, if any, have become ex-
tinct or have removed entirely from our
midst, but, owing to unfavorable seasons,
or to their destruction by enemies that
follow them, their numbers became les
sened so that their injury is hardly per-
ceptible. But on return of favorable
seasons and circumstances their propa-
cation is so rapid that they come upon
US again like the return of the seven
wear locusts A succession of warm
and dry seasons are generally produc-
tive of swarms of insects that modest US
for time, but which seem to disappear
when the seasons change.
These changes of seasons or periods
in which the Hessian fly has been
numerous enough to do special damage
to the wheat crop has been, according
to my recollection, once in about from
ten to fourteen years, and during the
intermediate time no serious injury has
been done, and yet they are never
extinct. The work of the fly can be
averted in Autumn by late seeding, as
the first frosts destroy them. But their
work in Spring or early Summer which
throws down the grain before harvest.
can hardly be prevented when the flies
are numerous and the weather favora-
bic for them. 1t may be thought that
to avert their work in the Fall by late
seeding we get rid of them in the Spring;
but the flies will find plans to deposit
their eggs in the scattered wheat plants
that come up on stubble ground and
elsewhere, SO that we can hardly escape
them when seasons are favorable to
their propagation, though the damage
will be much less when we escape in
the Fall
1t is impossible for any one to fore
tell whether the fly will be numerous
at the coming seed-time or not; certain
" there is enough of the insect larva in
our fields to produce flies to destroy
every wheat plant that springs up, but
the warm, dry weather of the early part
of this season seems to have changed
to cool and wet weather, and if it con-
tnues so until seeding-time we will
have no fears of the fly. But should
the month of September be warm and
dry we may expect the destruction of
every wheat plant that comes up before
the early frosts, but as soon as the first
frost the flies disappear, and SO if there
be heavy fall of rain.
1t seems to me quite probable, judg-
ing from the past, that we shall have no
trouble from the fly the present season,
as | think the drouths are past by for
the present; but it will be safer to defer
sowing to near the middle of September,
and if the deferred time is spent in fit
ting the land more perfectly, nothing
will be lost to the crop. A fertile and
well-tilled soil will greatly resist the
depradations of insects. or rather the
plant that is well supplied with food,
and grows strong and vigorously, will
overcome, in a measure, the ravages
committed, and produce a crop in def
ance of the destroyer
a farmer tod me lew Gays since
that he harvested a field of wheat this
season that would yield thirty bushels
per acre, and was not damaged by the
fly, while a neighbours over the fence
was SO destroyed that it did not yield
five bushels, and both were sown about
the same time The field that yielded
thirty bushels had been thistle bed
for few years previous, 1t was plow
ed early. and during July and August
a scarifer was passed over once in eight
or ten days, which made smooth bed,
perfectly fine and mellow, about three
inches deep, and gave the wheat a Wig
orous start as well as destroyed every
thistle in the field The effect of perfect
pulverization of the surface, so that the
plant can be fed with all the element of
plant food present in the food is not
generally appreciated by the mass of
farmers-not deep pulverzation as done
by frequent blowing, but surface culture
to make seed-bed fine.
+. p. Root, in Rural Home.