weavil

Updated: May 27, 2025

The grain is liable to the disadvantage of not keeping so well as that of Bengal or Java; but this fault might, I think, be obviated, partially at all events, by adopting the Calcutta plan of putting a pound or two of rice-dust and lime into each bag: this not only tends to preserve the rice, but repels the destructive weavil; a little black insect that makes its appearance in wheat and rice, in immense numbers, in those warm latitudes.

G. F. Davidson - Trade and Travel in the Far East: or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java,: Singapore, Australia and China.

Now, this is much more than the cost of manufacturing it with us, which would prevent that loss. I suppose the cost of manufacturing does not exceed seven per cent, on the value. But the loss by the weavil, and other damage on ship-board, amount to much more. Let them buy of us as much wheat as will make a hundred weight of flour.

Thomas Jefferson - Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1

We soon found from her that she and her husband were as she said new beginners, who, like most persons in the wilderness, had had many difficulties to contend with, which from accidental causes had during the past year been greatly increased. The weavil had destroyed their grain crop and the rot their potatoes, their main dependence, and they had felt the pressure of hard times.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton - Nature and Human Nature

In carrying to them wheat, we carry also the bran, which does not pay its own freight. In attempting to save and transport wheat to them, much is lost by the weavil, and much spoiled by heat in the hold of the vessel. This loss must be laid on the wheat which gets safe to market, where it is paid for by the consumer.

Thomas Jefferson - Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1