182 



TURNIPS. 



they come out iind Ijury themselves (keeping near the Turnip) 

 not quite two inches deep in the ground, when they turn into 

 the chrysaHs stage, from which the "Turnip Fly" or "Flea 

 Beetle " comes up in about fourteen days. 



It is in this state that the so-called "Fly" does most 

 mischief. It gnaws the seed-leaves, and the young plant 

 when it first springs, and thus often totally destroys it ; and 

 also gnaws the rough leaves, forming large holes through the 

 leaf. 



There may be five or six broods in a season. 



Much mischief is caused by Turnip Fly attack yearly, and 

 especially in dry seasons; but in 1881, the year of the most 

 general and severe attack, ever, as far as I am aware, 

 recorded, the visitation of Turnip Fly was nothing less than 

 a national calamity. The severity of the attack suggested 

 that if, whilst the amount of injury was still fresh in the 

 memory, those possessed of information would give details of 

 the extent of the losses sustained, and of any means found 

 practically of use, either in preventing or remedying attack, 

 such information would be of great service to us all. 



With this view, and with the valuable aid accorded me by 

 the courtesy of Mr. J. Dent-Dent, President of the Iloyal 

 Agricultural Society of England, Mr. C. Whitehead, Chair- 

 man of the Seeds and Plants Diseases Committee and now 

 Agricultural Adviser to the Board of Agriculture, and other 

 inriuential agriculturists, circulars were forwarded by myself 

 to various localities throughout England and Scotland, and I 

 was favoured with much valuable information in reply, both 

 as to statistics of loss and measures lying in the common 

 arrangements of good cultivation which were known to be of 

 practical service in checking the evil. This information I 

 published in a special Pieport entitled, ' Observations of 

 attack of Turnip Fly in 1881,' and in the following pages I 

 give Fome extracts, more especially bearing on the measures 

 of cultivation found to press on the good grow^th needed to carry 

 Turnip-plant in its first leafage past attack of the " Fly." 



Taking first the observations sent of the extent of the 

 Turnip Fly attack in England, it appeared that in the 

 localities from which returns were sent in twenty-two of the 

 English counties that re-sowing almost invariably took place 

 to a greater or less extent once, in many cases twice, in some 

 three times. The acreage under Turnips and Swedes in the 

 twenty-two English counties reported on, was on the 4th of 

 June, 1881, as stated in the agricultural returns of Great 

 Britain, 1,149,708 acres ; and from the reports sent to myself 

 of amount of Turnip Fly infestation, it might fairly be pre- 

 sumed that it was generally present in the counties reported 



