1884.] INSECT PREVENTION. 421 



• j ' * 



I have not seen this form of attack, but it is given on trustworthy 

 authority. In cases like this our best remedy seems to lie in having 

 the ground and the surroundings in such a state as will not suit the 

 attackers. The haulm-fly attack, so far as I have seen, is worst in 

 damp and ill-drained parts of fields, and also near hedges with 

 neglected grass headlands by them, and these neglected grass bands, 

 which appear most fruitful nurseries of wireworm and daddy-long- 

 legs, of wheat midge and haulm-fly, and probably of many other 

 corn pests, would be all the better for careful consideration. I will 

 ask your patience now just for a little longer to class these attacks in 

 some order. We have seen some attacks start from broken-up 

 pasture and clover ley. Here the ground is empty, and we may do 

 what we will, and we can do a great deal to fairly stamp out the pest 

 before we put the new crop in. Wireworm and daddy-long-legs are 

 of this kind. Some are sheltered in stubble, straw, haulm, roots, and 

 all kinds of perishing rubbish : we may in many cases get rid of these 

 shelters and the inhabitants in them. Turnip flea-beetle, mustard- 

 beetle, corn sawfly, and others are of this sort, and often the wheat 

 midge. Some are in stubble, and also live during winter in grub 

 state, feeding at the roots of clover, amongst the stubble ; and here at 

 pi'tiseiit there seems no better treatment than dressings which may 

 miki thie ground thoroughly obnoxious to insects, such as the 

 weevils, and also be good for the attacked crop. But here we need 

 much more information as to practical measures that may be 

 serviceable. A fourth kind live in the heart of the growing plant. 

 Such are the haulm -fly, and wheat-bulb-fly, and in these cases 

 draining, manuring, and removing such grasses as shelter the attack 

 seem to be our best help. But in all these cases something may be 

 done. The details must vary with soil and situation, but I have 

 endeavoured to point out the principle of action ; and if, as I fear, I 

 may have seemed to venture beyond my office in mention of agri- 

 cultural measures, I must beg you to consider that I only namt them 

 as examples of treatment that will act on the attacks, but that it is in 

 submission to your far better judgment as to how they had best be 



applied. 



Elea-nor a. Ormekod. 



'Food and Feeding.' — We have received from Messrs. Frederick Warne 

 and Co. the third edition, considerably enlarged, of Sir Henry Thompson's most 

 vakiable and useful little book on ' Food and Feeding.' The whole subject is 

 treated exhaustively. We have chapters on the selection and preparation of food, 

 on the various kinds of food, on meals, on drinks with meals, on dining out, and 

 on a host of other things relating to ' feeding ' in all its aspects. We commend 

 the book to aU who have not seen it, for who is not interested in food and 

 feeding 1 



2 F 



