LOSSES. 203 



necessary to know before advising measures which 

 can be depended on to answer at a paying rate. 



In many cases the different items of treatment 

 which go to make up good farming will of themselves 

 keep down a great deal of insect attack. By good 

 cultivation of the surface, and proper as well as liberal 

 manuring, by rotation of crops, and clearing fields and 

 borders of useless trash and weeds, we turn out a great 

 quantity of the pests which are harbouring in tlie 

 ground, and also ensure a good healthy growth, such 

 as will support the crop under moderate attack ; and 

 by the rotation of crop and absence of weeds we are 

 often able to present starvation to our grubs, as many 

 of them will only (or perhaps we should say, can only) 

 live on special food. 



These are the broad principles which will be sure to 

 be of use. We shall not be free from insects any more 

 than we shall be free from weeds ; and we need a 

 great deal more solid field information about the 

 habits of crop insects (and experiences of paying 

 means of prevention) before we can think we have 

 them thoroughly in hand. Nevertheless the last few 

 years have added enormously to our information, and 

 have shown us how at least we may greatly diminish 

 the amount of injury our crops suffer. 



Details of recorded amount of this loss per acre to 

 special crops would take too much space to insert 

 here ; but the fact of the Hop failure, through Aphis 

 blight in 1882, causing a loss of over a million and a 

 half pounds sterling, and the loss on the Turnip crop, 

 by Turnip-Flea Beetle in 1881, amounting to fully, or 

 to more than, half a million, may be taken as some 

 slight guide to what is going on. 



From insect injury, and from injury by what are 

 described as " insect allies," the losses we suffer 

 yearly are a most severe drag on the resources of the 

 growers, as well as a national loss ; and on these 

 latter infestations, which are often as severe in their 

 effects as those of insects on the attacked crops, and 



