easily, because his machinery enables him to catch the wheat in the nick of time before it can shell out, while another, with few machines and small team, prefers a wheat that will stand a long time without shelling, no matter if it does strip or thresh with difficulty. In the following notes, therefore, I have confined myself to facts, and these are such that growers of every shade of opinion will have an interest in them. Table showing the ease or difficulty with which the different varieties of ukeat groun at the Wagga Experiment Farm, since 1893, were threshed : 1.-WHEATS THAT THRESH VERY Easily. Pringle's Vermont Red Nott Sapphire Sardonyx Bailey II. - WHEATS THAT THRESH EASILY. Martin's Amber Mediterranean Mediterranean Hybrid Miami Valley Mould's Red Nimitybelle Noé Odessa Opal Pool Prince Albert Rattling Jack Red Bordeaux Red Lorraine Red Russian Rieti Rivett or Cone R.N.Y. Rye Wheat Rousselin Ruby Rye Wheat Saratow Saskatchewan Scotch Fife Sherman Smooth Red Spring Soft Algerian Steinwedel Summer Club Tall Bearded Neapolitan Tasmanian Thomas' R.R. Thuiss Velvet Pearl White Essex White Fife Winter Nigger Trap III.-WHEATS THAT THREsh Rather Easily. Bearded Club Bearded Velvet Chaff Belotourka Beryl Bladette Paylaureuse WHEATS THAT THRESH RATHER EASILY -continued. Blount's Fife Large Purple Straw Blount's Lambrigg Lehigh Blount's R. R. Leak's Defiance Buckby's R. R. Leak's R. R. Carter's A. Lazistan Carter's H. Mammoth Carter's 43 Missogen Carter's 81 Mouton Niagara Odessa sans barbes Old French Velvet Darblay's Hungarian Ontario Wonder Defiance Pearl or Velvet Diche Mediterranean Pringle's No. 5 Dominion Porcelaine Dwarf Humboldts' Port M'Donnell Early Baart Red Altkirche Early Bearded (French) Red Provence Finley Rio Grande Fort Collins Rudy Fulcaster Russian Fultz Salvator Gallician Saumur. Sardius Gharat Saumur de Mars Gore's Indian No. 2 Scholey's Square Head Green Mountain Scotch Red Hallett's Pedigree Small's 0. K. Indian y Sorrell Indian a Stewart Inglis' R. R. Tuscan Island Ironclad Ultuna Red Beard Jock Velvet Chaff Bearded Red Clawson Willett's New Red Wonder White Flanders King's R. R. White Lammas Ladoga White Naples Laidley White Russian Langfeldt's I'right's R. R. WHEATS THAT THRESH RATHER HARD. Carter's 87 African Champlain Hybrid Agate Chrysolite Algerian Clarke's R. R. Atlanti Count Waldersdorff American Purple Straw Cretan Andriola Amber Cythere White Australian Glory Dallas Australian Poulard Defiance (Pringle's) Australiau R. R. Deitz Australian Talavera Dutoits Banater Early Para Bancroft Egyptian A. 105 Banham's Browick Egyptian A. 106 Bega Egyptian C. Blue Stem Egyptian E. Brigg's R. R. Egyptian G. Brogan's Red and White Forella Californian Chili Fillbag Californian Genesee Farmer's Friend Carter's F. Fountain Carter's New Hybrid Frames' Early Carter's K. Frampton Wheats THAT THRESH RATHER HARD-continued. Pringle's No. 6 Purple Straw Tuscan Red Chaff Square Head Red Straw Red Tuscan Reliable Rimpan Robin's R. R. Russian Schilf Sicilian Baart Sicilian Square-headed Red Snowball Spaulding's Prolific Soft Portuguese Talavera de Bellevue Tardent's Blue The Blount Trump Tuscan Essex Velvet New Zealand Venning's Webb's Challenge Webb's King Red White Chaff Red White Tuscan White Tuscan, Lake Bathurst White Velvet Zealand. Mica WHEATS THAT TURESH HARD. Jones' Winter Fife King's Jubilee Leak's R. R. Little Club Marshall's 2 Marshall's 3 Marshall's 10 Pride of Butte Pringle's R. R. Propi Quartz Rattling Tom Steer's Early Purple Straw Uncle Tommy Urtoba Velvet Chaff Ward's Prolific Ward's White White-eared Mummy Zimmerman WHEATS THAT THRESH VERY HARD. Indian Z. Soft Australian Young's Bearded If, now, we group these wheats around certain well-known sorts, such as Talavera, White Velvet, Defiance, we shall arrive at certain general conclusions of greater value than knowledge concerning any one variety. Below I have attempted this in the case of the soft wheats, i.e., the ones generally cultivated for flour. ::::::::::::::::: Table showing the relative ease or difficulty with which different groups or "families " of soft wheat (T. sativum) can be threshed. Beardless Soft Wheats. 1. Allora Spring group ... Very easy to thresh. 2. Steinwedel group ... Easy to thresh. 3. Essex group ... Rather easy to rather hard to thresh. 4. Fife group Easy to rather easy to thresh. 5. Noé group Rather easy to easy to thresh. 6. Red Provence group ... Easy to rather hard to thresh. 7. Beardless Rye Wheat group ... 8. Square Head group Rather easy to hard to thresh. 9. Defiance group ... Rather easy to rather hard to thresh. 10. Lammas and Talavera group ... 11. Tuscan group ... 12. Purple Straw group 13. White Velvet group ... ... Rather hard to thresh. 14. Chili group ... 15. Golden Drop group 16. Ward's Prolific group ... ... Hard to rather hard to thresh. 17. Jubilee or Indian group Hard to thresh. Bearded Soft Wheats. 1. Bearded Hérisson group ... Easy to thresh. 2. Early Japanese group ... 3. Lazistan and Cythen group Easy or rather easy to thresh. 4. Ladoga and Anglo-Australian group Rather easy or easy to thresh. 5. Baart group ... ... *** | Rather hard to thresh. 6. Bearded Velvet Chaff group ... 7. Port Germain group ... " Hard to thresh. 8. Bearded Indian group ... We may also derive from the tables of varieties threshed the following conclusions :1. The bard wheats, or macaroni wheats, of which Medeah and Belo tourka may be taken as the type, are harder to thresh than the soft wheats. 2. The Poulard wheats, of which Algerian and Mummy may be taken as types, also thresh with greater difficulty than the soft wheats. 3. Weak straw is of no value as an indication of ease in threshing. 4. Earliness or lateness in ripening is no criterion as to ease of thresbing. 5. Velvet-chaffed wheats, whether they be bearded or beardless, thresh harder than the corresponding smooth chaffed sorts. 6. Wheats with crowded heads are generally harder to thresh, other things being equal. 7. Red-chaffed wheats, with few exceptions, are easier to thresh than white-chaffed sorts. 8. Bearded wheats, other things being equal, are easier to thresh than beardless sorts. This conclusion refers, however, only to the ease with which the grain can be parted from the chaff, and does not refer to the well-known fact that the beards tend to clog up the threshing machine. In this connection I appeal to the inventors and manufucturers of strippers and threshers to give special attention to constructing machines that will handle bearded wheat. I am convinced that machines can be made that will thresh bearded wheats as perfectly and as conveniently as beardless tbeats. Such machines would meet a ready sale, because they would enable farmers to grow certain bearded wheats which are eminently suited to Australian climates, and in many ways more suitable than the sorts now grown. Forest Insects. SOME GALL-MAKING COCCIDS. BY CLAUDE FULLER. The Coccidide are better known by such popular terms as Scale-insects Bark-lice, and Mealy-bugs. They are classified by entomologists under the great order Hemiptera, the members of which are easily distinguished froin other insects by their beak-like mouths. On account of this peculiar formation of the mouth, they are essentially suctorial in their habits, nourishing themselves upon the juices of plants and animals. The order is dividel into two distinct divisions—the Heteroptera, which includes the true bugs, and the Homoptera, which embraces Cicadide, Aphides, and Seale-insects. The differences between these two sections are well-defined. The true bugs hare the beak springing from the front of the head, and the upper or first pair of wings are one-half thick and the other half thin—that is, the basal half is thick and leathery, whilst the tips, which overlap each other, are thin and membranous. In the Homoptera the beak in being of the same consistency throughout, and usually carried in a sloping The family Coccidida is in itself regarded as an anomalous group, its members departing widely from the original type of the order. It is not, therefore, surprising that in such a land of anomalies as Australia the greatest irregularities are found to exist. Such an irregularity is the genus Brachyscelis, the members of which live exclusively upon trees and shrubs of the order Eucalyptus. These insects cause woody-galls of many interesting shapes to grow upon the tree, in the heart of which they live; in the case of the females till death, and of the males until the adult stage is reached. The popular name “Gall-maker," as with the terms Scale-insect and Mealy-bug, has its origin in the external character exhibited by the insects, but the gall-growth differs from the "meal” of the Mealy-bug and the "scale" of the Bark-louse, insomuch that it is brought into existence at the actual and direct expense of the tissue of the plants, whilst the scales and meal are products of the animals themselves being secreted through pores or openings in the body. The Male Insect. Upon issuing from the gall, in which it has undergone its transformations, the male resembles a fly having two white wings. It has very long antenna and legs, which give it quite a spidery appearance. The antenna are hairy, and consist of about ten joints; the basal joints are short, and, with the exception of the terminal, the others are rather long and constricted. The legs are bairy, and hear several spines, a pair of distinct upper digitules, and are furnished with simple claws. The abdomen is long and cylindrical, the |