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THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY.
Volume XVIII.
RALEIGH, N. C, TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1903.
Number 17.
AGRICULTURE
HARRY FARMER'S TALKS.
CXXI.
Editor of The Progressive Farmer :
In a recent article in The Progres
sive Farmer some one mentioned
mowing oats and soja beans, and one
said that soja beans were like garden
pea?. Now, these things are likely
to mislead.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF LEGUMES.
The soja bean is a summer plant
that grows upright like pepper and
bears peas or beans in pods very
much like garden peas, excepting
that the pod is covered with a stiff
down. The pea known as the Can
ada field pea is like the garden pea,
and grows in the winter and early
spring. It is sown with oats or bar
It y to keep it off the ground. They
are not suited for the coast region.
The cool moist springs of the north
or mountains parts of the South is
where they thrive best. Vetch re
sombles them a little, but is much
smaller. It does very well here. All
of those plants are nitrogen gather
ers and for this reason should be cul
tivated more by our farmers. The
"ja bean may be planted any time
that Leans do well. It is said that
the plant makes good hay. We pre
fer the cow pea for our farm.
FIGHTING AN INSECT PEST.
e want farmers to give their
treatment of land that is infested
with what is known as the blue louse,
hug. etc. It is a small insect
v tv mu. h like the lice found on col
lars eahhage, turnips and similar
l;la"ts in the spring. This insect
llv on the root. The plant of corn
r cotton will turn a little red and
ill not orow with all the care and
aimre you put on the crop. Late
111 the summer they stop working the
er"l. after it is too late to make a
f-""d en. p. This insect is found on
ll,'arly 'ill the best cotton lands of
tho (ten, part of the State. It
"'"in d.M-s any damage on high,
NUidy soils.
R0W BAD roads hurt farmers.
J,'.are -1;d that the road laws are
"Ivm- 1U((ro attcnti(m from the
M-ap.-rs. V0 certainly agree with
c!e XXnu'T wo advocated aid from
vu?l' Millions of dollars are
iX(Ty-two ycars for rivers har-
et' !U lur tlle PurPose of helping
lar. niul lmPorters. There are
am.,mits jjivon tQ railroads and
011 C(,1Panies. Why not give
irri
some for building public roads so
that farmers can haul their products
to market?
An up-country town needed fruits
and vegetables to supply its market,
which was bare, and such stuff was
selling high. Farmers within only a
few miles had apples, potatoes, cab
bage, etc., which were spoiling on
their hands and they greatly in need
of all the money they could get for
truck. And yet, it was just about as
hard for farmers to carry their
goods as it would have been if there
had been a very wide river with noth
ing but a little birch bark .canoe to
cross in, instead of the boggy clay
hills. Do you see who suffers in this
case? The consumer suffers just as
badly as the farmer. Both have to
pay the penalty for the bad roads.
This is not the only instance in
which both lose; it is so nearly every
year.
At least three-fourths of our peo
ple both in the cities and country,
suffer from bad roads. This is poli
tics, but is not the kind to help one
class at the expense of another, for
all are vitally concerned.
HARRY FARMER.
HESSIAN FLY IN WHEAT.
The Pest is Becoming Unusually De
structive in Western Counties Ento
mologist Sherman Tells of Ways of
Combatting It.
Editor of The Progressive Farmer :
There seems to be urgent need of
informing the wheat farmers thor
oughly as to the best means of deal
ing with the Hessian Fly, for it is
evidently causing them much loss
every year. A week or two ago we
gave in The Progressive Farmer the
essential points in dealing with it,
but willrepeat here more in detail
as more serious reports have been
received since the publication of
that article.
The adult parent insect of the
Hessian Fly is a very small, slender
blackish, two-winged fly (there are
a number of specimens before me)
which resembles a mosquito. The
adult female fly deposits its eggs on
the wTheat leaves, usually selecting
those that are nearest the ground.
The eggs hatch into small white
maggots which work down to the
stalk, feeding on it near the joints
where it is beneath the base of the
leaf. Here it grows to maturity,
when it changes to what is known as
the "flax-seed" stage. This stage is
correctly known as the pupa and it
is brown and oval in shape suggest
ing the seed of the flax in general
appearance. In this stage the in
sect is entirely helpless and takes no
food; the maggot is simply trans
forming to the adult fly. We see
then that there are four distinct
stages of existence in the life of this
fly: (1) the egg; (2) the maggot,
which does the damage ; (3) the pupa
or "flax-seed," and (4) the adult fly.
All through the piedmont section
of North Carolina there are two
complete generations of the insect
each year. One brood of adult flies
appears and deposits eggs in the fall
and another brood emerges and de
posits eggs in the spring . or early
summer.
Let us now begin when the farmer
sows his wheat in the fall and fol
low his field (and the fly) through a
year, and we will then be able to dis
cuss the master of remedies intelli
gently.
Suppose the wheat is sown early
in October and is nicely up by the
20th of that month. About the 25th
a brood of the flies appear and de
posit their eggs on the young wheat.
The maggots which hatch from the
eggs work around the joint of the
stalk near the ground feeding on the
tender juicy fiber. Here they reach
maturity in about four weeks and
change to the pupa (flaxseed) stage
to pass the winter. The adult fly
emerges from this pupa in April or
May (specimens bred from stalks
sent to me emerged between May 4
and 18) and after mating the female
deposits eggs for another brood. The
flies themselves do no harm other
than to lay the eggs, and after they
are deposited the flies die. The eggs
thus laid hatch into maggots which
continue the destructive work and
which mature and transform to the
pupa (flax-seed) stage by harvest
time. The grain is cut and the stub
ble left standing in the field. An
other field is sowed to wheat in early
October and the brood of flies emer
ges from the old stubble in the lat
ter part of the month, flies to the
new field, deposits eggs and dies.
If there is no wheat up when this
fall brood of flies emerges then they
must die without depositing their
eggs or they must deposit them else
where, and each fly only lives for a
day or two after emerging, for it is
the natural course of events, with
many insects that they reach matur
ity only for the purpose of providing
for the next generation, and they
die a natural death of slow starva
tion after maturity is reached.
It is evident that it would be very
expensive to apply any kind of rem
edy which should reach the insects
on each stalk, but knowing the his
tory of the insect's life we are pre
pared to combat it effectually. Note
that the adult flies emerge in the
fall in October or early November'
and that therefore they may be
largely avoided by planting as late
as possible. Note also that the in
sects are in the pupa (flax-seed)
stage when the grain is cut in sum
mer, so that by at once burning off
the stubble they will be destroyed or
if the stubble be turned under deeply
and then rolled to pulverize the top
surface, the flies will be suffocated
and unable to emerge.
These are the two great points to
be attended to in combatting the
Hessian Fly and the advice may be
boiled down to these two proposi
tions :
1. Plant late as possible in the fall.
2. Burn off or 'u; 'i-nder deeply
the stubble of imV! vd uelds imme
diately after harvest.
Any farmer x.U- vr7 drpt iho--practices
will r , .ft
from it, but the results will be ail
the more evident and beneficial if
adopted generally by all the farmers
in a community.
The Hessian Fly is a bad pest and
will no doubt always continue to be
so, but it will not seem nearly so se
rious when the farmer learns thor
oughly the history of its life as here
explained, and puts into practice the
suggestions here given. There is
nothing theoretical about this. Every
farmer must see the common-sense
of it, and all know that the' very late
sown wheat is not so subject to dam
age by fly as that which is sown ear
lier. In teaching my classes at the
A. & M. College for the past two
'years, and whenever I have had oc
casion to talk with farmers about
this pest, I have always brought out
the point of late planting and have
never yet found a farmer who had
carefully noted the results who did
not admit its value. The turning
under or burning off stubble is a
point not so well known among farm
ers, but it is of value for the reasons
here given.
FRANKLIN SHERMAN, JR.,
Entomologist, Department Agricul
ture, Raleigh, N. C.
A man cannot have an idea of
perfection in another which he was
never sensible of in himself. Sir
Robert Steele.