E. A. ORMEROD — PREVENTION OF rNSECT-INJtTRr. 5 



tho Tcrmin, of course taking measures to prevent those that drop 

 down from returning again. Where the ground is bare, merely 

 giving it a good trampling will destroy large numbers of fallen 

 caterpillars, and if a ring of gas-lime is just thrown with a spade 

 round the trunk of the tree, of course not touching it in case of the 

 gas-lime being fresh, all regress is stojjped. 



Beating on to large cloths is a good plan with the wingless 

 beetles, such as some weevils, whicli tlius may be destroyed in largo 

 numbers at night ; and in large attacks of beetles, such for instance 

 as cockchafers, which lie for a short time on the ground and then 

 take wing, some assistants, such as poultry, or better still, pigs, 

 whose energy is unbounded in the service, are invaluable in com- 

 pleting the operation. 



Again, looking at general methods of treatment, where the ground 

 has been occupied by infested crops, thorough digging, trenching, 

 or ploughing (of whicli the details would be too tedious to enter on 

 here) which would turn some part of the soil so deeply down that 

 the contained vermin, whether as perfect insects, chrysalids, larvae, 

 or eggs, could trouble us no further, and would throw part on the 

 surface to the birds, or other agents of destruction, would all be 

 useful ; and besides the mitigation of evil we may get by reason- 

 able general treatment, the more we examine into the life-histories 

 of our commonly injurious crop-pests, the more we find that there 

 is usually some point at which the injury they do lies open to 

 special measures of prevention — literally a point where we may be 

 before-hand with it. 



Dressings and washings, and other applications, require much 

 knowledge in the applicant to make them serviceable, and often 

 only add to the expenses of the attack. For instance, in the case 

 of turnip-fly, or flea-beetle, the dustings which are applied on a 

 dry hot day, or even on a dewless late evening, or early morning, 

 may probably be only a loss of so much money for labour and 

 material per acre, whilst if applied when there was moisture and 

 the leaping legs of the flea-beetle were so clogged therewith that 

 it could not spring away, the dusting would take effect, first by 

 falling on it before it had skipped out of reach, next by sticking to 

 it, to its great injury. 



Similarly with aphides — many of them have an exterior of a 

 nature that repels all merely fluid washes, and often a mere watery 

 wash runs otf from them as from a duck's back, and unless it 

 lodges amongst the crannies formed by their aggregated numbers, 

 or poisons their food, they remain unharmed, — whilst if something 

 adhesive, as soft soap, is added, the application remains and has 

 due effect. 



It is in points of this nature that the agriculturists of the United 

 States of America, also of Ontario, and possibly of other Canadian 

 States, have such a great advantage over ourselves. The great 

 mass of practical infonnation published by the Entomological De- 

 partment of the United States Government gives a large amount 

 that is intelligible to general readers as to the life-histories and 



