HESSIAN FLY. .\ dipterous insect dottryia destructor), which. [non the damage which the larva does to wheat in North America, and also to some in F.111•11111% has become one of the most widely known of insects. It is dark in color, nearly black. with dusky wings and pale brown legs. While distinctively a wheat insect, it will breed also in barley and rye. Over a large part of the wheat area of the 'United States there are two principal brood-, namely, a spring brood and a fall brood. 'There all', how ever, supplemental broods both in spring and fall, particularly in the southern wheat areas: but in the extreme northern area of the spring wheat belt there linty be only a single generation. Each generation is represented by four distinct states, namely. egg. larva Or pupa or `flaxseed; and the mature winged insect. The eggs are very minute and slender, white in color, and are usually deposited in irregular rows of three to five or more on the upper surface of the leaf. Sometimes they are Dints' Ileneath the sheaf of the leaf on the lower joints. The whitish maggots hatch and crawl down to the base of the sheath, developing on the substance of the stalk, causing a distortion or enlargement of the stalk at the point of attack. lit :t few
weeks the larva contraets into a tlaxseed•like ob ject. which is the puparium. [With the spring brood the insect remains in the flaxseed state during midsummer. giving out the perfect insect usually in September. X1ith the fall brood. the insect passes the winter in the flaxseed state at the base of the whit( r wheat.
The best are the late planting of winter wheat or the early planting of a narrow strip in which the flies will lay their eggs and which may afterwards be plowed tinder. the hulk of the crop being planted late. The copious and prompt use of fertilizers enables the wheat to tiller sufficiently to yield a partial crop even when badly attacked. The burning of the stubble, the destruction of volunteer wheat. and the growth of resistant varieties are all recommended.
TiTRT.TOIIR.'1111Y. Osborn. 7'hr Hessian Fly in the United States (Department of Agricull tire. Wash ington. 1898) : The fly in Wheat (Penn sylvania Department of Agriculture, TTarrisburg, 1890): Lugger, The Ilescsian I'ly (Minnesota. Agricultitral Experimental Station, Saint Paul, )899); Bulletin 107 (Ohio Agricultural Experimental Station. (T'olumbus, 1898).