206 



JOURNAL OF HORTIOOLTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



[ September 3, 1874. 



vesting. Let him not mind their being green, they will harvest 

 well notwithstanding. — D., Deal.] 



Fig. 60.— Turnip Flea. 



THE TUENIP FLEA. 



Will you give soma information in the Journal about the 

 small black beetle — I believe it is a beetle — which often, and 

 this year greatly, infests gardens in the neighbourhood of fields 

 of brown Mustard ? With me they are devouring Turnips and 

 Cabbages, Stocks and Nasturtiums. I would send some speci- 

 mens, but as they leap like the liveliest of fleas, the catching 

 would take more time than I have to spare. — A. B. G. 



[We sympathise with you whilst we laugh over your letter. 

 No insect is more insidious or more sweeping in the destruc- 

 tion it brings upon some of the farmers' and gardeners' crops 

 than the Turnip Flea (Haltioa nemorum). Turnips of all kinds. 

 Beetroot, Mangold Wurtzel,Kadishes, and Flax are all liable to 

 be destroyed by this insect ; and 

 it is only one instance of many 

 of the weakness of man when 

 opposed to the apparently in- 

 significant natural agents with 

 which God works, that, despite 

 the indefatigably-applied skill 

 and labour of the cultivator, 

 this minute insect will often rob 

 him of £100,000 worth of Tur- 

 nips in a single county in one 

 year. It is a singular misapplica- 

 tion of terms that this insect is 

 known among cultivators of the 

 soil as the Black Fly and the 

 Turnip Fly, but none of them 

 ever call it a beetle, which it 

 really is ; and the most descriptive name is the Turnip Flea 

 beetle, for this describes not only its real nature, but its 

 favourite food, and its extraordinary power of skipping or 

 leaping like the common flea. This insect is represented in 

 fig. 60. of its natural size and magnified. The body, one- 

 eighth of an inch long, is rather flattened, and of a brassy- 

 black colour, thickly dotted; the wing-cases are greenish 

 black, with a pale yellow broad line on each ; the base of the 

 feelers (antennai) and the legs are pale clay-coloured. The 

 eggs are laid on the under side of the rough leaf of the Tarnip 

 from April to September; they hatch in two days. Their 

 maggots live between the two skins or cuticles of the rough 

 leaf, and arrive at maturity in sixteen days. The chrysalis is 

 buried just beneath the surface of the earth, where it remains 

 about a fortnight. The beetles are torpid through the winter, 

 and revive in the spring, when they destroy the two first or 

 seed leaves of the young Turnip. There are five or six broods 

 in a season. These insects are most to be feared in fine 

 seasons. Heavy rains, cold springs, and long droughts de- 

 stroy them. Their scent is very perfect : the beetles fly against 

 the wind, and are attracted from a distance. The rapid growth 

 of the plant is the best security against them : to secure which, 

 sow plenty of seed all of the same age. Burnmg the surface 

 of the land is beneficial, by detroying the chrysalids. Deep 

 digging is an excellent practice when the chrysalids are in 

 the soil. Drilling is a far superior practice to sowing the seed 

 broadcast. Destroy Charlock, it affords support to the beetles 

 before the Turnips come up. The most effectual banishment 

 of the Turnip Flea, we think, is secured by sowing the surface 

 of the soil with gas-lime two or three mornings after the 

 Turnip seed has been sown. This is so offensive to the insect 

 as to drive it away just at the time the young plants are 

 appearing above ground. — Eds.] 



BKIAR STOCKS. 



I OBSERVE your correspondents are again discussing Briar 

 stocks for Koses, and extolling the seedling Briars so much 

 that they recommend their friends to send to France for a 

 cargo, since they cannot grow them in England. Why not 

 try cuttings, as I recommended last November:' Now and 

 next month is the proper time. I put in forty yesterday, and 

 will continue to add more all next month whenever I fall in 

 with a favourite Briar. 



I shape my cuttings exactly like those of Gooseberries, and 

 make them as firm in the ground as possible. 1 take oft every- 

 one by the heel. I am confident these will grow, as I have for 

 ten or twelve years proved the fact. I therefore strongly re- 



commend to all rosarians to try the plan, and not to be obliged 

 to France or any other country when we can be better suppUed 

 at home. 



Take out to the hedgerows your secateur (a grand instru- 

 ment for the prickly Briar), and whenever one of the right 

 sort is met with lop-oft its branches (farmers will not be dis- 

 pleased at this), take it home, and get it into the ground 

 previously dug for the purpose. Then, in the course of two or 

 three years, you will be delighted with your Briars — tall, clean, 

 and handsome. Whenever one of the old stocks sends out a 

 sucker I am not at all displeased. I either work it on the 

 spot, or transplant it to the little nursery of cuttings. When 

 I find a branch of a Rose I have been in search of containing, 

 say, six good buds, I work three of these on the Briar and the 

 other three on the Manetti, and if the Rose prove worthy, in 

 future years propagate it on its favourite stock accordingly. 

 Always insert the bud on the north side of the branch, where 

 neither summer nor winter suns can shine upon it. 



There is little fear of failure just now with good buds and 

 excellent stocks, but the spring is a dangerous period. Just as 

 the Rose bud is beginning to shoot forth, that abominable pest 

 the weevil in one night has the bud eaten out and destroyed. 

 I lost fully five-sixths of my buds last spring in this manner. 

 Komembering that neither men, women, nor children relish 

 castor oil, as a remedy late in the season I went over every 

 bud and bedaubed it with that liquid. I thought of train oil, 

 but was afraid of injuring the bud. If I can hear of no cure 

 from your Rose friends, I shaU, early next March, go over every 

 bud with the castor oil, and thus prove whether it be effica- 

 cious or not. Any hint in the Journal from your enthusiastic 

 growers will be highly esteemed. — David Dodds, Kelso. 



CONSTRUCTING GREENHOUSES.— No. 2, 

 A VEKY useful structure is shown in /i;/. (51 : — There are four 

 shelves for plants, each about lu inches wide, except the top 

 one, which is 2 feet wide. Of course they become graduaUy 

 shorter as they rise to the central or top one. The shelves, as 

 well as the lower portion for Ferns, are made of strong deal 

 laths instead of boards. Besides the water usually required 

 by Ferns, they of necessity receive additional water when the 

 plants above are watered ; but for common Ferns this is rather 

 a benefit than otherwise. 



m 



S' 



i^iAiMt^ 



8 



C:i; 



:D 



Fig. 61. 



5, Strawberry-shelf. 



6, Vioes. 



7, Glass rises from here. 



8, Flagged path, 30 inches wide. 



1, Four-inch hot-water pipes. 



2, Glazed drain-pipe for flue round or 



under Fern-trame. 



3, Fern-platform. 



4, Flower-stand. I t ii i ■ i 

 The conservatory is built on arches, and the Vine roots run both outsida 



and inside. 



The house is lofty, being 11 feet to the springing of the 

 span roof, which, to the apex, again rises 4 feet (> inches. It 

 is placed with one end to the south-west, the other end open- 

 ing by the glazed folding-doors into a hbrary, and it has the 

 snn on it from •,) a.m. for the rest of the day. 



There are Vines trained on the roof which answer well, and 

 afford a good shade for flowers and Ferns. In cold weather 

 the house is heated both by hot-water pipes and by a 12-inch 

 flue of glazed drain pipes. 



It is 20 feet square, has a flagged walk round the plant-stand. 



