31 
Mr. Henry Le Keux or the Turnip Fly. 
turnip plants before the rough leaf has been formed, hut their most 
destructive operations are carried on beneath the surface of the 
earth, where they attack the root ; in the very early state of the 
plant, after eating this through, the upper part of the plant is gra- 
dually drawn down into the earth and devoured, so that the plants 
disappear without any perceptible cause and without any trace of 
them being left. In the more advanced state of the plant their de- 
vastation appears to be confined to eating through the root, and 
having thus killed one plant they proceed to another. If a turnip 
plant appears drooping (as if from the want of water) whilst those 
in its neighbourhood are fresh and erect, a wire-worm (sometimes 
half a dozen) will be sure to be found at the root, if the earth 
around it be carefully removed. I think it probable that the mole 
may prove the best protection against the ravages of this insect, 
because I observed that seven years ago moles were very numerous 
all over the farm, and at that time the wire-worm was never found 
to be injurious to any of the crops ; but a war of extermination 
has ever since been most sedulously carried on against the mole, 
and with such success that it has become a rare thing to meet with 
upon the farm. The wire-worm, on the contrary, is now so abund- 
ant as to cause very serious and perceptible injury by laying bare 
large patches in the different crops. 
When the land is in a very dry state, every agriculturist must have 
experienced the great length of time the seed will remain in it without 
signs of vegetation, until after rain has fallen ; and then he is sur- 
prised at the small number of plants in proportion to the seed sown, 
perhaps only one in about one thousand. In an instance of this kind, 
whilst searching for the Haltica with a magnifying glass, I observed 
many ants travelling along, each bearing similar particles of something 
in their mandibles, which, upon closer inspection, I found to be turnip 
seeds. As the ants were to be found all over the field busily occupied, 
if each of them carried off only one seed, the crop from those re- 
maining would not require much thinning with the hoe afterwards. 
I fully intended to have traced some of them to their nests, and to 
have ascertained whether their granaries contained any store of 
turnip seeds, but accidental circumstances and other engagements 
prevented my doing so. Perhaps some one more at leisure than 
myself will find an opportunity of making the examination. With 
a view to guard against this evil, before sowing the seeds, I im- 
mersed them for five minutes in a solution of one drachm of cor- 
rosive sublimate in two quarts of water, and then spread them upon 
paper in the sun to dry, but this injured the germinating powers, as 
very few of them came up, and those looking feeble and sickly : 
