272 WILLOW. 



injurious, and this was the case notably in 1884, in Willow 

 beds at Lymm, Tlielwall, Warriu,i;ton, and other places on 

 the border of Lancashire and Cheshire._ On about fifty 

 acres of Willows grown in the Lymm district it was con- 

 sidered that, unless means had been taken early to suppress 

 the beetle, the whole crop, estimated on an average as worth 

 about .4*1000, would have been lost. This sum, however, 

 means only the loss of the crop for one year; and if this 

 should happen, the old stocks would not live ; consequently 

 the land would require trenching, paring, and burning and 

 replanting the following year, the replanting alone costing 

 something like 415 an acre, and still the risk of being eaten 

 up afterwards. 



In the district between Warrington and Lymm, a distance 

 of five or six miles, the Willows were reported as being 

 affected pretty much alike, and on the 29th of May, Mr. H. 

 Cameron, writing from Lymm, Cheshire, informed me that 

 the Willow growers in that district, who were suffering from 

 this insect scourge, had formed themselves into a society for 

 mutual protection and interchange of experience. Of this 

 society Mr. Cameron was the chairman, and the following 

 notes are mainly from observations with which I was favoured 

 by Mr. Cameron, or other residents personally interested in 

 the matter, whilst we were in correspondence how best to stop 

 the attack. 



Pkevention and Eemedies. — It will be seen by the following 

 notes that one of the main points to be worked on for 

 preventing attack is that of the beetles wintering under old or 

 loose Willoiv hark, or under rubbish on or near Willoiv grounds, 

 and, in short, like the nearly-allied " Mustard " Beetle, in any 

 snug shelter, but especially such as is formed of the rubbish 

 of the plant which is its summer food. 



Mr. W. Worthington, writing from Wigan on the 28th of 

 May, mentioned: — 



" It was noticed that there were two visitations of the pest 

 — the first in May, ivhen the old beetles leave their winter- 

 quarters; the second later in the season, just before the 

 Willows begin to ripen. The insects then settle in vast 

 numbers on the tender leaves and shoots of the plants, and 

 in an incredibly short time do an immense amount of damage. 



" When the beetles leave the Willow beds in autumn they 

 conceal themselves in old fences, hay and corn stacks, 

 crevices of old buildings, &c., where they pass the winter, and 

 emerge to commence their depredations in the following 

 spring, when the Willows have got into leaf." 



Relatively to the sheltering of the beetles during winter 



