MIDGE. Minute insects infesting wheat, the gooseberry, and various plants. They are some times very destructive to wheat, barley, rye, grass, etc. The eggs are deposited in June and July, in the opening flowers of the grain. These hatch in about eight days, and produce minute, orange-colored grubs, which feed upon the juices of the grain when in a milky state, inside the chaff or outer covering, or upon the pollen of the flower. When fully grown most of the larvae descend and burrow in the earth, where they remain all winter. The pupae usually are formed in the ground in May or June; some, however, remain in the heads, and the perfect fly or midge makes its appearance the following season to deposit its eggs on the grain and grass. Lime or .ashes, strewn over the grain when in blossom and wet with dew, will be useful. Newly-slaked lime and wood-ashes will be required, in the proportion of a peck to a bushel to the acre. When the maggots have left the grain and are in the ground, plowing is recommended as soon as the grain is harvested. The chaff and refuse straw together, containing the larvae or pupae, -should be scalded, burnt, or otherwise destroyed. Early sowing of all wheat in the autumn, or late, sowing of spring wheat in the spring, will enable the wheat to become too far advanced, and hard, before the fly makes its appearance in the first case, and by not coming into blossom in the last, until the flies have disappeared. When
the midge has been very abundant the previous -summer, deep fall plowing has been recom mended, and a different crop should be sown next season. Until we find some parasitic fly, like the European species, to aid us in their destruc tion, there is very little hope of successfully bat tling with this little pest. In this country a species of thrips is said to destroy the eggs or larvae; a coc 'cinella or lady-bird feeds upon the larvae, and the yellow-bird is said to feed upon them. In Europe they are destroyed by several parasitic hymenop tera viz., Cailimone, _Macroglenes, Plalygaster, The earwig also destroys either the wheat-midge or .a thrips which frequents the wheat. The goose berry-midge (Cecidomyia(Asphondilia)grossularice) injures gooseberries by depositing its egg in the fruit, and the larva, or grub, being hatched, feeds inside, and causes the gooseberry to present a prematurely ripe appearance, to turn red, and then drop from the bush. It is recommended to pick all fallen fruit from the ground and burn it immediately, as, although this proceeding may not be of any use the same season, the berries being already destroyed, the following year, the last season's generation being destroyed, there will be scarcely any midges to attack his future 'crops