46i 



tUE fROPtCAt AGRICULTURIST. 



[]kU 1, 2887, 



mmamaiemimmm 



I i"i 'tfir 



wisely iu devoting special atteutiou to the insects 

 ■which arc injurious to crops, whether of hops, onru, 

 or fruit; and we have before us today the third of 

 a series of reports upon the subject, prepared for the 

 Privy Council by Mr. Whitehead, and dealing specially 

 with the enemies of fruit. We also pubHsh a letter 

 from the same eminent authority, in which he warns 

 farmers of the injury likely to be produced by the 

 attacks of the "Hessian fly" upon wheat. It is very 

 evident that the enemies to agriculture which are 

 thus described, although individually insignificant, are 

 really very formidable from their numbers, their vora- 

 city, and their power of reproducing their kind as 

 an affliction for future seasons; and that no care or 

 pains should be spared in the endeavour to compass 

 their destruction. In the attainment of this end, the 

 science of entomology is calculated to render most 

 important help ; since a knowledge of the aspects, 

 the habits, and the metamorphoses of the peccant 

 insects is plainly essentia] to the conduct of a cam- 

 paign against them. 



In a general way, ib may be stated that the life 

 history of an insect destructive to fruit is, that the 

 adult female deposits an ovum in the young flower 

 bud, at such a time that the larva may emerge when 

 the germ of the fruit is in course of formation, and 

 fit to furnish a nutritive and succulent meal. The 

 larva pursues its depredations with great caution and 

 judgment, not killing the goose which lays for it the 

 golden eggs, but carefully abstaining from any attack 

 upon the actual germ, the vital portion of the im- 

 mature fruit, as long as there is anything else to be 

 consumed. When the germ itself is devoured, famine 

 may be said to impend over the larva, but by that 

 time it has attained a considerable growth and an 

 enlarged capacity for iudependent action, and it seeks 

 new worlds to conquer. When, as in the nut tree, 

 the once tender fruit husk has become hard, and en- 

 closes the magget in a shell, the maggot is provided 

 with jaws of corresponding strength and sharpness, 

 insomuch that it can gnaw a hole through the cover- 

 ing and thus make its escape. It is almost annoying 

 to read that, in the majority of cases, the creature 

 has become so fat as to experience some difficulty 

 in squeezing its body through the aperture which is 

 gauged by the diameter of its head ; but this diffi- 

 culty seems usually to be overcome. In fruits which 

 have the eatable portions unprotected and externa), 

 as in the raspberry, strawberry, and blackberry, the 

 satiated maggot has only to drop off when its larder 

 shows signs of exliaustion ; and in almost every case 

 it seems to reach the ground, sometimes having but 

 a short distance to fall, sometimes lowering itself 

 cautiously by the aid of a silken thread. On reach- 

 ing the ground, it seldom travels far, but usually 

 buries itself at the foot of the plant on which it ha3 

 been fed, and awaits the transformations which will 

 convert it into a winged insect, when it will rise 

 again, prepared either to deposit the ova which will 

 produce a fresh generation upon the same hapless 

 tree to which it was itself indebted for food and 

 ehelter, or to go further afield in search of another 

 victim. In some cases the larv;o do not reach the 

 ground at all, but take refuge in chinks of the bark, 

 and there undergo their changes ; and in some their 

 attacks are not directed to the fruit, but roots are 

 gnawed and iujured by larvte which have sprung from 

 ova originally deposited in the ground, and have al- 

 ways been subterranean in their habits. In every 

 case, however, it seems to bo the ground, and espe- 

 pially the ground close to the stem of the affected 

 plant, which affords the chief harbour for these in- 

 sidious and formidable enemies. 



In order to minimize the evils produced by these 

 creatures, it is iu the first place necessary that fruit- 

 growers, and farmers generally, should learn what 

 ft is that insects do, and should no longer attribute to 

 unknown cause the mischief which they so constantly 

 produce. Not only the Privy Council, but also the 

 Koyal Agricultural Society, has taken much pains to 

 spread abroad the required information ; aud the 

 writings of Miss Ormerod, for the latter body, can- 

 uot be passed over without appreciative notice. Thanks 



to her and to Mr. Whitehead, as well as to the 

 labours of American a^ul other entomologists, there 

 is now but little excuse for any faliure to recognize 

 the attacks of insects ; and considerable progress has 

 been made iu the direction of measures of preven- 

 tion. All authorities agree in attributing to certain 

 small birds, especially to titmice, an excellent appetite 

 for the destroyers, and a remarkable faculty for dis- 

 covering them ; and it is also said that they are a prey 

 to various other enemies, even to parasites, who live 

 upon their small bodies, and inflict upon them, it 

 may almost be hoped, something of the annoyance 

 which they cause to others. Agriculturists, however, 

 have but a restricted confidence in small birds of any 

 kind, and would generally be more disposed to apply 

 them to culinary uses than to preserve them in their 

 fields or gardens; and, in support of this almost in- 

 stinctive feeling, it must be admitted that even a 

 titmouse, when searching for a delicate morsel within 

 the folds of a half -expanded blossom, would be likely 

 to handle it with an amount of roughne.ss which 

 might well prove detrimental to its future prospects. 

 On the whole, the best hope of dealing successfully 

 with the "pests" seems to be derived from the 

 habitat of the larv» iu the earth, where they are 

 more or less accessible to mechanical and chemical 

 treatment. To this end it is recommended that they 

 should, as much as possible, be deprived of interven- 

 ing or neighbouring harbour — that is to say, that all 

 grass and herbage around the roots of trees or plants 

 should be kept closely cut, or, what is still better, 

 eaten down by sheep, and that no straw or farm lit- 

 ter should be placed upon the ground even in straw- 

 berry beds — to the abandonment of the custom, which 

 prevails in many places, of putting dowu straw to 

 preserve the berries from being soiled by contact 

 with the earth. On the same principle, cover for the 

 larvse is to be destroyed as far as possible by scraping 

 or almost grooming the trunks and larger branches 

 of trees so as to remove cracked and rugged bark ; 

 and, when these precautions have been adopted, the 

 ground at the foot of the trees should be loosened 

 and turned up by forks and the soil saturated with 

 various unsavoury mixtures, ranging from soap suds 

 to petroleum. Compounds destructive to insect life 

 or comfort may also be applied to the upper parts of 

 large trees by various mechanical means ; due care being 

 taken, in the use of hellebore or other active poisons, 

 as well as in the use of petroleum or other strongly 

 flavoured liquids or mixtures, that they are not 

 applied in such a manner as to adhere to the fruit 

 and to render it either hurtful or nauseous. By 

 such means as these, used with due care and circums- 

 pection, there seems to be no doubt but that much 

 good may be effected, of course not from the point 

 of view of the insects; and it is further probable 

 that great importance should be attached to the em- 

 ployment of all possible precautions in small gardens, 

 where all sorts of measures hostile to insects can bo 

 conducted more.eflSciently than is possible on a larger 

 scale, and from whence it may fairly be surmised, 

 fresh generations of destroyers may not unfrequetly 

 take their flight in order to extend their destructive- 

 ness to localities far beyond the narrow limits of their 

 original birthplace. — Loudon Times. 



MANURING. 



All attempts to improve the nature of a soil should 

 have for their object the hrinyimj it to a state of 

 loam, by the addition of those substances which are 

 deficient. A loamy soil requires less dung to keep it 

 in heart than either clay or saud ; for which it is 

 favourable to the process by which organic matter 

 buried deep in the soil is converted into in.-<uliible 

 humus; it also permits that part of it which is 

 nearer the surface, to attract oxygen from the air, 

 and thus it is converted into a soluble extract, which 

 is to the roots of plants what the milk of animals is 

 to their young, or ready-made food easily converted 

 into vegetable juices. 



The mineral elements of soils become parts of plants, 

 Life modifies chemical laws, and converts inofganio 

 matter into organic. 



