CHAPTER XXVIII.

[14]See Morton’sCyclopædia of Agriculture.

[15]Ibid.

[16]Cyclopædia of Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 68.

We have had opportunities, through the kindness of Professor Lindley, who contributed seeds, of cultivating all the forms just described; but our experiments for two years did not elicit anything new upon the subject: we therefore feel justified in quoting the above entire, especially as the different forms in our plots afforded sufficient evidence of an uniformity of origin on the one hand, with every disposition for forming varieties on the other.

Rye (Secale cereale).—For the little that is known of the natural history and origin of this crop-plant we again quote from theCyclopædia of Agriculture, which states as follows:—

“The common rye is a cereal grass, distinguished from wheat by its narrow glumes and constantly twin narrow florets, with a membranous abortion between them. Otherwise it is little different in structure, although the quality of its grain is so inferior. According to Karl Koch, it is found undoubtedly wild on the mountains of the Crimea, especially all around the village of Dshimil, on granite, at the elevation of from 5,000 to 6,000 feet. In such places, its ears are not more than 1 to 21⁄2inches long. Its native country explains the reason why it is so much hardier than any variety of wheat, the southern origin of which is now ascertained.”

We have not seen any of this so-called wild rye; it would, however, be of great service could some good experiments be made with it, with a view of noting the changes which take place on cultivation. Indeed, we have long wished for authentic examples of allour wild, or supposed wild, cereals, with a view of examining side by side the nature and amount of the changes which cultivation would most assuredly produce.

Rye, unlike either wheat or barley, is not remarkable for a long list of varieties—a fact which may, perhaps, be attributed to the more limited growth of the former than the two latter. Its less extended cultivation must be attributed to its inferior qualities as food; for, though rye is in the main a hardier plant than wheat, and therefore could withstand the evils of a colder climate and colder treatment, yet with the advanced climate—the acclimatization of a country rather than a plant—the superior plant, wheat, everywhere prevails; and this cause also gives rise to the production of finer varieties, which are thus grown where only coarser ones were possible.

These forms of parasite are so numerous, that nearly every species of flowering plant may become the nidus even of several named genera, with many species, or, at least, varieties of them. We here say attacked, because the advent of many of their forms passes under the name of “blight;” a term which at once recognises their injurious tendency.

Whether these epiphytes are the causes of the so-called blighted conditions, or merely their effects, is a subject upon which no little discussion has been expended. We do not, however, mean to re-open the question here; we will only remark, that in all probability this very wide range of the lower tribes of the vegetable kingdom is very variable in these respects.

Again: it will be impossible to enter into details of the different species of epiphytes. We shall hope, therefore, to elucidate their natural history, in so far as the farmer is concerned, by pointing out the more general facts connected with the following forms:—

1.Uredo segetum, Smut or Dust-brand, is common to barley, and not unfrequent in wheat; in both of which crops it is easily recognised from the affected ears of corn appearing as though they had been powdered over from the sweep’s soot-bag. On closely examining these blackened ears, we find that the whole flower has, as it were, effloresced into a black powder, which, on being placed under the microscope, is shown to be composed of myriads of granules, called by the fungologistspores, in which latter are contained still smaller grains, orsporidia.

These black spores are all washed away by the time the crop is ripe, leaving the stalks bare and grainless, so that the sample suffers no injury from this blight, which, even if present after threshing, would only tend to a slight discoloration of the sample, which is remediable by the smutter. Its chief effect, however, consists in causing the loss of much grain. We have observed it to the extent of as much as an eighth, but usually the diminution is about equal to the amount of seed sown; though it is not improbable that the whole crop may in many cases be greater when the smut is present. Sheep-folding previous to barley, special manuring for this crop, and other causes of increased fertility, are constant causes of the increase of the dust-brand.

2.Uredo caries—Bunt, Pepper-brand, Smut-balls.—This blight differs from the preceding in the fact that in the grain no flower is formed, but its interior becomes filled with a dark powder, which, when viewed under a high magnifying power, is found to consist of granules, with a surface which is rough, and not smooth as in the dust-brand.

In most cases, the whole grains of the ear will be so affected; in others, only a portion of them. They will be gathered in the harvest, and as the diseased grain is readily crushed, the black powder materially damages the appearance of the sample. Nor is this all: this blight has a most disagreeable odour and flavour, both of which are communicated to the sample, and so, besides diminishing the amount of produce, it greatly deteriorates it. Its specific name ofcariesof course refers to this fact, as also does that ofU. fœtida, adopted by Baur, an author to whom we are greatly indebted for information upon these curious productions.

Before considering the remedy for this evil, it will be well to distinguish it from the “purples, ear-cockle, or peppercorn” (vibrio tritici)—a name expressive of its animal origin, and frequently rendered “wheat-eels.” In the purples, the grain is shorter than a healthy wheat grain, irregular in shape (cockled), and purple externally; but its interior is filled with what, to the naked eye, is like very short white cotton-wool. On placing a bit of this woolly substance with the point of a needle on a slip of glass, just touching it with water and submitting it to a high magnifying power, the term “wheat-eel” will at once be seen to be justified; for, if alive,thousands of eel-like creatures will be seen writhing in the fluid.

The differences of these two affections of wheat may be expressed as follows:—

As regards the ear-cockle, we incline to the belief that a damp atmosphere and cold soil are chiefly concerned in its spread, if not in its production. As we have shown the difference between it and bunt, we now proceed to offer a few remarks upon the production of the latter, and its remedies.

Bunt is mainly produced by defective seed. It occurs on all kinds of soils—sands, clays, and limestones—and is not peculiar to any climate. Professor Henslow believes the disease to be wholly propagated by the spores of the fungus adhering to the wheat-seed. He says, “It has been clearly proved that wheat plants may be easily infected, and the disease thus propagated, by simply rubbing the seeds before they are sown with the black powder or spores of the fungus. It is also clearly ascertained that if seeds thus tainted be thoroughly cleansed, the plants raised from them will not be infected;” and he deduces from this a proof in favour of steeping; for he says, “This fact is now so well established, that the practiceof washing or steeping seed wheat in certain solutions almost universally prevails.”[17]

[17]See an essay onDiseases of Wheat, in theJournal of the Royal Agricultural Societyfor 1841, by the Rev. Professor Henslow.

Our own experiments, however, recorded in the “Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society” for 1856, led us to conclude that the success derived from pickling wheat in different caustic and corrosive solutions arose from the fact of diseased grain being destroyed in the process; and we extract the following record of experiments made in 1853, as explaining this view of the matter.

Four plots of wheat, all from the same sample, were sown in the following order:—

The results of these were as under:—

Plot 1. Most of the seed germinated, but the crop was much blighted, both in straw and grain; in fact, scarcely a perfect ear of the latter.

Plot 2. A small quantity of the seed germinated; the few resulting ears were free from blight.

Plot 3. Germinated, with a good and clean resulting crop.

Plot 4. The same result as Plot 3.

These experiments seemed to show that the pickling of wheat destroys the seed, so as to preventgermination when the seed is diseased or ill-formed; but if perfect seed be always employed, no pickling at all is necessary, it being strictly true that a diseased progeny must result from an imperfect stock in plants no less than in animals.

We have said that bunt is not peculiar to any climate; we have, however, always observed that employing seed from a warm district on a cold one, or using the finer white wheats in cold, exposed, or ill-drained situations, is sure to produce a large quantity of this fungus. Autumn-sown wheat, too, is less liable to the infection than spring wheat, which we attribute to the fact that many of the weaker plants will succumb to the cold rain and frost.

3.Uredo rubigo(Red-rust, Red-rag, Red-robin) makes its appearance in the inside of the chaff-scales, and ultimately in the green epidermis of the growing grains of wheat. Its first appearance is that of oval pustules, caused by the raising of the skin, which, ultimately bursting, shows the orange-coloured spores of the epiphyte. This must not be confounded withCecidomyia tritici(wheat-midge), the larvæ of which are of a bright orange-colour; in the latter, the living moving worms may be easily detected by any common pocket lens or magnifying glass. Both these pests, to which we would apply the distinctive terms ofUredo rubigo(red-rust) andCecidomyia tritici(red-gum), are exceedingly common in some seasons, and not unfrequently in the same crop. Good deep cultivation is the best remedy for the rust; but the treatment of the fly is a different matter. We would suggest the burning of smother-heaps on calm days,just as the wheat is bursting into ear, as smoke is decidedly obnoxious to these small insects, which in some seasons may be seen in thousands about the bursting wheat.

4 and 5.Uredo linearis;Puccinia graminis(Straw-rust and Mildew).—We refer to these epiphytes under one heading, as there can be but little doubt that the latter is a more advanced state of the former. They both occur in oblong patches on the leaves and straw of wheats and other grasses: in theuredostage, of a dull red colour; in thepucciniastage, of a blackish hue. They are both, as, indeed, are all these fungi, interesting microscopic objects; but our object now is to describe them popularly. Both will always be found in abundance in cold poor soils, and more especially if the finer wheats be grown in such situations. The application of a dressing of salt to the soil is said to be a preventive. Be this as it may, the disease is said to be rarer in Cheshire, where salt is so much used by the farmer, than in any other county, in as far as we have observed.

Here, again, we incline to think that these are morbid affections of the plant. They are, indeed, viewed as such by Unger, in his “Die Exantheme Pflanzen,” in which the very title classes them with eruptive diseases of animals. Berkeley and Henslow, the two great authorities, however, do not accord with this view: the former remarks in reference to it—“Surely these plants are too distinctly, too regularly, and too beautifully organized to be the products of disease like warts or purulent matter in animals.” As, however, the microscope demonstrates that warts and eruptive diseases have also their special andcuriously formed organisms, such a mode of reasoning is not conclusive.

Weeds have a great influence in producing mildew, which perhaps may be accounted for from the fact that weeds are in active growth as the wheat-stalks decline in vigour; and hence the constant evaporation of moisture from the weeds to the wheat is continually re-moistening an ever-drying surface—a most fertile source of mildew and moulds of several descriptions.

6.Puccinia fabæ(Bean-rust).[18]—The brown pustular rust-looking spots on the foliage of beans, and, indeed, occasionally on the stems and pods of beans, are sometimes common to this crop. They are usually accompanied by a lessening both in quantity and quality of this pulse, both in the garden and in field culture, but certainly more generally in the latter. Too gross manuring without well mixing the dung with the soil would seem to be a constant source of the evil. In fact, highly nitrogenized manures appear to favour the development of all this class of epiphytes, just as too much meat might bring about different forms of rash or eruptions in the animal. Weeds, which are too much permitted in beans, here aid in perfecting the mischief; hence, then, we may perhaps take it for granted that the mention of the causes of mischief suggests the remedy.

[18]This blight is mentioned here on account of its affinity to the former.

7.Æcidium berberidis(Barberry-rust) is here referred to, from the opinion prevailing that it is the cause of rust and mildew in wheat. We can no more believe that the barberry-rust would produce rust inwheat, than the rust of any other plant would do so; for nearly all plants are affected with some kind or other of rust. This epiphyte, too, is very different in structure from wheat-rust. Still, that wheat growing under a barberry hedge may be more blighted than in the rest of the field is quite true; and so it is with wheat grown under any kind of hedge. High fences are known to favour wheat blights; open, exposed, well-cultivated positions, when not too elevated, and without trees or hedges, being those in which the best wheats are grown.

8.Cladosporium herbarum(Corn-ear Mould) is a brown-coloured mildew, mostly occurring on the exterior of the chaff-scales of wheat, but common to many plants in a state of decadence. It consists of greenish or blackish tufts, which appear on the outside of the chaff-scales of wheat under the two following conditions:—

On wet soils, where the ears appear to have been prematurely starved.

On dry sands, where long-continued drought has caused some ears to wither and die before the seed was fully formed.

In both these cases we see that the plant has been previously injured. The decay commences under alternations of moisture and drying, and hence the fungoid attack. Here, then, the conditions necessary for preventing will be deep cultivation and a due pulverization and mixture of the soils.

9-12.Botrytis,&c.(Mildew).—Under this head we include a multitude of epiphytes, to which the terms mildew, mealdew, mehlthau (Germ.) are applicable. They appear to the naked eye as patches of whitedust or meal on the leaves and stems of the affected plants. With the microscope we see that they are beautifully-organized plants, having a kind of rootlet (mycelium) or spawn entering the tissues of the living plants on which they grow, and delicate pedicels supporting spores at the externally visible portion of the plant. The botrytis of the potato and turnip, the erysiphe or oïdium of the hop, vine, and other plants, are only different forms of mildew, which in some shape or another will be found on most plants. That these attack living tissues is quite certain; but in the case of the potato, the turnip, and the vine, there is reason to believe that they result, to a very considerable extent, from diseased action in their tissues. For example: the botrytis of the potato seems to attack a crop much over-cultivated, on the approach of wet and cold nights after a prosperous growth in warm sunshine. So, the oïdium seems to us to be most abundant on renewed growth after a season of dry weather. Again: mildew in turnips is sure to follow that check which a long season of dry weather brings after a prosperous and vigorous growth. All these circumstances at least show how these attacks are favoured by the conditions which bring disease. So much, indeed, is this the case, that we found, upon experimenting with some cucumbers in a warm stove, that as long as we regularly watered the plants and gave them the requisite air, they kept healthy; but, by neglecting these conditions for a few days, we obtained mildew with the greatest certainty.

The remedies against mildew are—to obtain as healthy a growth as possible, and to maintain thiswith as great regularity as circumstances will permit. Of late years, both the mildew of the vine and the hop have been treated with flowers of sulphur. Dusting the affected hop-leaves with sulphur certainly arrests the mildew in an incredibly short time; and we found that by dusting sulphur from a fine sieve on our cucumber plants, the disease was immediately arrested in its progress. We therefore look upon this as an invaluable remedy in these states of mildew, whether occurring on the vine, the hop, the turnip, the cucumber, or on other plants, as we have frequently seen it in hothouses—a circumstance which shows the near affinity of all those forms of epiphytes, which, perhaps, after all, only vary with the variations in the structure and economy of the different plants on which they occur.

13.Oïdium abortifaciens(Ergot);Secale cornutum(Ergot of Rye).—The black horn-looking spur which occurs in rye and other grasses was formerly looked upon as a distinct fungus; now, however, it is known to be a diseased or malformed condition of the grain or seed, resulting from an attack by an oïdium on the immature seed.

Most of the cereal and even the meadow grasses are liable to attacks of ergot, which is increased by cold damp fogs and a moist condition of the atmosphere, the difference of the size of the spur being in accordance with the size of the affected grass seed. Thus, in rye we have seen spurs more than an inch long, while in the cock’s-foot grass it is seldom a quarter of an inch.

The ergot, as it occurs in the rye, is much used by medical men in difficult cases of parturition; and wehave had evidence before us, in some cases of abortion in cows, that the constant depasturing on grasses affected with ergot (and theLolium perennein aftermaths is often especially so) has been the predisposing cause.

The different families and species of insects affecting the various kinds of corn crops in all their stages of growth are so numerous, that a detailed list of them would occupy greater space than we can devote to this chapter.

In this position of affairs we have thought it wise to confine our remarks to some of the commoner and more mischievous species, choosing those more particularly which are common to the wheat crop, of which the following may be at once introduced as a summary in itself sufficient to show what the farmer may expect at each stage of growth:—

Now, this list may be said to have reference to eight stages in the growth and preparation of wheat,and they mostly apply to other grains also—namely, 1. The germinating plant; 2. The growing plant; 3. The growing flower; 4. The green ear of corn; 5. The young grain; 6. The perfected grain; 7. The stored grain; and 8. In the state of flour.

1. TheSlugmay be described as a houseless snail. There are several species, but the milky slug (Limax agrestis) and the black slug (L. ater) are those most common to our corn crops, and are more especially mischievous to wheat; for, as this crop usually succeeds clover or “seeds,” in which they breed most rapidly, so, the older the clover lea, the more eggs will be ready to hatch in the wheat crop, and this all the more readily as the wheat is nearly always put in with a single ploughing, and with as little cultivation as possible.

The best remedy will be found in encouraging insectivorous birds—the lark, rook, starling, peewit, and others, eating them either in the egg or young state with great avidity; a good assistance to whose labours may be supplied in a few broods of ducks from the farmyard, which it will pay well to have tended by a good boy—where such can be found—as these birds are most efficient as destroyers of slugs and caterpillars.

Store pigs turned into old leas, where they can do no mischief, will get no bad living where snails and insects abound.

Wire-worms.—The several species of beetle which produce the wire-worm belong to the genusElater. They are of a long oval shape: about half the length belongs to the head and thorax, and the other to the abdomen. Every schoolboy knows that whenhe holds the insect on its back it elevates the abdominal portion, and again lets it fall so as to make a beating sound; and hence its generic name, and also its common name of click-and-hammer beetle. If he remove his finger when in this position, the creature immediately skips up and turns on its feet, from which action it has got the name of “skipjack.”

Curtis has estimated nearly seventy species of click-beetles as producing wire-worms in this country; but the three following are those generally met with—Elater lineatus,E. obscurus, andE. ruficaudis. These all attack corn and almost every other kind of vegetable.

The larvæ of these are very much alike, being hard, leathery, wiry caterpillars, which vary in length to about three-quarters of an inch, according to age. These are mostly smooth, and have six feet on their thoracic segments, and a false foot orprolegin the middle of the underpart of the terminal section of the abdomen—characters by which wire-worms may be distinguished from all others. Their length varies with age; as they live for some years in the larva state, so the different sizes mark so many broods, which in some fields are annually provided for. It should here be observed that the wire-worm does not breed; these larvæ can only be hatched from the eggs of the female click-beetle: hence, then, destroying the worms prevents the development of their parent.

Now, as we have seen whole fields of wheat destroyed by wire-worms, it becomes important to examine the nature of this attack, with a view to point out a remedy. If, then, we go into a corn fieldin early spring, and see the young wheat blades looking yellow and sickly, we shall seldom be long in finding the wire-worm, on carefully taking up some of the affected plants. Its position will be at the base of the plant, sometimes eating its way into its centre, and so eating out its very heart; or perhaps it may nibble away the outer coat of the young stem, and so prevent any nutriment passing into the blade. One worm will be enough to kill a single blade; but, alas! it frequently happens that he either visits all the blades, or is assisted by many individuals to each plant. This abundance we have observed more particularly on the breaking up of old pastures, old seeds, or saintfoinlea, in which not only have we many broods of wire-worms, but the eggs of a fresh lot, which hatch in time to eat the spring wheats. Again, this large increase we have ever observed in districts where rooks are few or much molested. The rook is a constant visitor to the clover field; but when the plant is young he is driven off, because the farmer “cannot think what else he can come for but the clover buds;” and when he sees some of these strewing the ground where the birds have been, he is confirmed in his opinion: but, if he carefully looked at the buds themselves, he would find them of a sickly hue, however recent the attack, and, if he looked deeper he might find the real enemy.

Fortified, then, with repeated observations of this kind, if asked how best to keep under wire-worms, we say most unhesitatingly, encourage the rook: he is one of the farmer’s best labourers; and though, like John, and Dick, and Hodge, he will sometimes run into mischief, it is surely better to institute a judiciouspolice than to condemn and execute without very strong evidence.

Yarrell, in his beautiful “British Birds,” has the following remarks upon this highly-important subject:—

The attempts occasionally made by man to interfere with the balance of powers as arranged and sustained by Nature, are seldom successful. An extensive experiment appears to have been made in some of the agricultural districts on the Continent, the result of which has been the opinion that farmers do wrong in destroying rooks, jays, sparrows, and, indeed, birds in general on their farms, particularly where there are orchards. In our own country, particularly on some very large farms in Devonshire, the proprietors determined, a few summers ago, to try the result of offering a great reward for heads of rooks; but the issue proved destructive to the farms, for nearly the whole of the crops failed for three successive years, and they have since been forced to import rooks and other birds to stock their farms with. A similar experiment was made a few years ago in a northern county, particularly in reference to rooks, but with no better success; the farmers were obliged to reinstate the rooks to save their crops.

But as, perhaps, the most interesting account of the value of rooks will be found in an extract from theMagazine of Natural History, vol. vi. p. 142, we cannot do better than transcribe it:—

“In the neighbourhood of my native place (in the county of York),” says the writer, Mr. T. Clithero, “is a rookery belonging to W. Vavasour, Esq., of Weston, in Wharfdale, in which it is estimated that there are 10,000 rooks; that 1 lb. of food a week is a very moderate allowance for each bird, and that nine-tenths of their food consists of worms, insects, and their larvæ; for, although they do considerable damage to the fields for a few weeks in seed-time, and a few weeks in harvest, particularly in backward seasons, yet a very large proportion of their food, even at these seasons, consists of insects and worms, which (if we except a few acorns and walnuts in autumn) compose at all other times the whole of their subsistence. Here, then, if my data[197]be correct, there is the enormous quantity of 468,000 lb., or 209 tons, of worms, insects, and their larvæ, destroyed by the rooks of a single rookery in one year. To everyone who knows how very destructive to vegetation are the larvæ of the tribes of insects, as well as worms, fed upon by rooks, some slight idea may be formed of the devastation which rooks are the means of preventing.”

Let this, then, suffice for the rooks; but starlings, wagtails, larks, and other birds, are also helpmates to the farmer; and therefore the wanton destruction of these will certainly bring, nay, has already brought, a great amount of trouble upon the cultivator of the soil.

The destruction we speak of has been committed by clubs and societies established for the purpose; but, as their members are mostly filled up with all sorts of prejudices—few being naturalists, or even accurate observers—it becomes daily a matter of more pressing importance that middle-class education, if not National-school teaching, should recognise the value of the natural sciences.

2. TheGout-fly(Chlorops glabra) and theSaw-fly(Sirex pygmæus) both lay their eggs below the first node or knot of the young plant, which, as soon as they hatch, form maggots that eat out the substance of the stems and the nodes, which thus become weakened and ultimately break off, or, if left standing, the ears of corn as they appear will be dried, whitened, and infertile.

In these, as in most cases of insect attacks, we have an occasional blight of such extent as to destroy whole crops, against which we are almost powerless, as we know so little of the economy of the creatures by whom the mischief is caused; still, there can belittle doubt but that their periodical appearance, to the extent to cause them to be recognised asblights, is due to the thinning of their enemies; and we have always observed that a paucity of theHirundines—the swallow tribe of birds, their greatest enemies—is coupled with a great increase of the smaller insects which it is the vocation of swallows, bats, and others of the hawking insectivorous creatures, to take on the wing.

3. TheWheat-midge(Cecidomyia tritici), also called the Hessian-fly, is sometimes very destructive to the wheat crop. In 1860 we observed the effects of this creature to a greater extent than we have before known, in not a few instances rendering the crop scarcely worth reaping. Upon this creature we sent the following notice to theAgricultural Gazettefor August 30, 1862:—

The wheat-midge (Cecidomyia tritici) has been so destructive for the last two or three years, that every fact connected with its history ought to be of great interest. Curtis tells us that “in Scotland one-third of the crop was lost, and the farmers suffered severely in 1828 and the three following years;” whilst “in Suffolk the yield[19]of wheat was one-third less in some districts in 1841 than was expected.”The presence or absence of this insect is so important as affecting the yield, that we now never fail to look for it in every crop upon which we would offer a judgment in this respect.It is easily detected in the larva state on opening some of the chaff-scales—pales—of affected crops, as in the interior of these will be found some minute larvæ (maggots) of a bright yellow or orange colour. In the earlier period of the blossom these larvæ will be found about the[199]stamens and pistils; later, upon the grain, which is always shrivelled and lost where the attack has been made.The colour of the maggots is so much like that of the red-rust as often to be mistaken for it; the difference, however, between the bunches of minute granular fungi and living worms will be made apparent to the most careless observer by the assistance of a common pocket lens. We find two terms in use for these yellow appearances—namely, red-rust and red-gum; and as we have so often found them employed indiscriminately, we would restrict the former to the fungus,[20]thus—Uredo rubigo, red-rust; andCecidomyia tritici, red-gum. Our observations on the latter this year have chiefly been made in the counties of Sussex and Gloucester, in both of which we have seen this insidious enemy at work to an alarming extent. In the former county, with a very limited extent of red-rust; in the latter, the later and more delicate wheats have both red-rust and red-gum in the same crop: and the interest of the subject will be the more forcibly apprehended when we say that in some crops, which, from a first glance at the straw and ears, we should have put down as somewhere about thirty bushels per acre, we have, after a more minute inspection of the ears, estimated at less than twenty bushels; and, indeed, in one field which we have examined during the last week (August, 1862), affected by theCladosporium,Uredo, andCecidomyia, there will scarcely be a yield in good grains of the amount of the seed sown.

The presence or absence of this insect is so important as affecting the yield, that we now never fail to look for it in every crop upon which we would offer a judgment in this respect.

It is easily detected in the larva state on opening some of the chaff-scales—pales—of affected crops, as in the interior of these will be found some minute larvæ (maggots) of a bright yellow or orange colour. In the earlier period of the blossom these larvæ will be found about the[199]stamens and pistils; later, upon the grain, which is always shrivelled and lost where the attack has been made.

The colour of the maggots is so much like that of the red-rust as often to be mistaken for it; the difference, however, between the bunches of minute granular fungi and living worms will be made apparent to the most careless observer by the assistance of a common pocket lens. We find two terms in use for these yellow appearances—namely, red-rust and red-gum; and as we have so often found them employed indiscriminately, we would restrict the former to the fungus,[20]thus—Uredo rubigo, red-rust; andCecidomyia tritici, red-gum. Our observations on the latter this year have chiefly been made in the counties of Sussex and Gloucester, in both of which we have seen this insidious enemy at work to an alarming extent. In the former county, with a very limited extent of red-rust; in the latter, the later and more delicate wheats have both red-rust and red-gum in the same crop: and the interest of the subject will be the more forcibly apprehended when we say that in some crops, which, from a first glance at the straw and ears, we should have put down as somewhere about thirty bushels per acre, we have, after a more minute inspection of the ears, estimated at less than twenty bushels; and, indeed, in one field which we have examined during the last week (August, 1862), affected by theCladosporium,Uredo, andCecidomyia, there will scarcely be a yield in good grains of the amount of the seed sown.

[19]We believe this creature to be one of the most common causes of deficient yield, so that a knowledge of its history is all-important in estimating the value of a crop, which, as a rule, we should always put lower in the seasons when this blight abounds.[20]Seeante,p. 185.

[20]Seeante,p. 185.

The fly which lays the eggs from which these yellow larvæ are derived is of about the size of a gnat, and usually takes the wing in the evening, in which case, if its enemies the bats are not numerous, smother fires lighted towards sundown on the wind side of the fields are not only destructive to large numbers, but act as an offensive notice to quit to others. Curtis says:—

With regard to the Hessian-fly, even if its presence could be ascertained in the early stages, it does not seem possible to devise any[200]means of destroying the eggs or young larvæ, unless feeding off the blade with sheep would effect the object; and when their progress is detected by their mischievous works, at a more advanced period, nothing, I apprehend, but sacrificing the crop would arrest them. It appears, therefore, to be an evil to which we must occasionally submit; but, to guard against its immediate recurrence, it will only be necessary to collect and burn the stubble after the corn is reaped, by which means the larvæ and pupæ which are concealed at the base of the stalk will, of course, be destroyed.

Now, in reference to wheat stubbles, we would remark that the old-fashioned plan of leaving them long as a protection, and, we may add, a preserve of food for partridges, had its good effects in an agricultural point of view; but if this be done, we advocate the burning of the stubs on the soil, as they will thus act better as a manure, while the destruction of insects by the process must be enormous. All concur that modern agriculture suffers increasingly from insects; hence, then, an extended study of their habits seems daily more desirable: and we boldly assert that if our country schoolmasters would teach their pupils to observe insect life, they may be doing more good to agriculture than all our present so-called agricultural colleges and schools put together.

4. TheAphis flea(Aphis granaria) is a creature destructive to the grain by “sucking the verdure out on’t.” We have this year (1864) seen this insect, more especially theapterous—wingless—females, sticking on to the green wheat ears to such an extent as to render a walk into the crop a disgustingly dirty process. It would seem that a continuous dry and warm season favours the increase of these creatures; but, as we have always observed that the earlier sown wheats nearly always escape, from their cominginto ear and advancing to ripeness before the aphis has increased its countless broods; so then we should recommend early wheat sowing, wherever and whenever practicable, as a preventive of the pest; in fact, the being in good time with all farm work has every advantage.

5. The two affections of the grain in our table are widely different in their modes of attack, but both tend to lessen the quantity of produce. The first, the Ear-Cockle (Vitrio tritici) is an affection of the grain, which at starting it will be well to distinguish from smut or bunt. In the latter, the grain is filled with what appears a black powder, the grains of which the microscope shows to be a fungus;[21]whilst in the cockle the seed, which is purple externally—hence called “purples”—is filled with what appears to be white cotton wool. This, under the microscope, has the appearance of a multitude of eels. These are, indeed, minute infusorial worms, and are exceedingly curious; the smallest portion of the cottony substance taken on a pin’s point and just moistened with water, often showing thousands of the eels under a good instrument; for drawings and descriptions of which and good drawings (after Bauer), we should recommend the reader to consult “Curtis’s Farm Insects.” A damp season favours the production of these; hence drainage and such conditions as increase the effects of damp and cold are to be guarded against.

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