730 



the new leaves of very vigorous plants, I have observed that the crea- 

 ture has always been obliged to leave them." — p. 134. 



In one place the vaslator "lives upon the juices of the plant," 

 then, again, " the solid portion is taken away by the insect." 



At pages 19 and 20 we have the physiology of the potato treated 

 in the true essay-writer style, and at pages 132 and 133 we have 

 another version of the same subject, but both are so quaint, so dry, 

 so inimitably serious, that the drift of the writer is concealed in the 

 delicious ambiguity of his paragraphs, and we honestly confess our- 

 selves to have been his dupes whilst we were reading the earlier 

 chapters and verses. 



Several species of Aphis or plant louse do really infest the potato, 

 but none of them in any abundance, or to an excess that can possibly 

 do the plant an injury: and it is a subject worthy the attention of 

 cultivators that those plants in wdiich the plague-spots of the disease 

 make their appearance, arc remarkably free from Aphides or other 

 insects, a circumstance which would go far to show that the disease 

 which is so injurious to the plant is equally inimical to its natural 

 parasites. There is an inscrutable intimacy between plants and their 

 insect parasites that is well worthy the attention of the instructed 

 naturalist: it opens up a wild field for observation, and one which 

 we cordially recommend to our readers : we need scarcely assure 

 them that the Aphis rapa? has nothing whatever to do with the dis- 

 ease in question. Indeed, it is by proposing so very ridiculous 

 an explanation of the evil, as it were out-Heroding Herod, that the 

 author throws his withering sarcasm over the lucubrations of the 

 essayists. 



We wish that every idle fashion could find a Smee to bring it into 

 ridicule : we are convinced that the shafts of satire penetrate much 

 farther than those of argument, and we trust that an end will now be 

 put to the frivolous pamphleteering about the poor potato. If this 

 happy consummation be achieved by the keen pen that has laid 

 waste the mass of rubbish written on the subject, we shall be glad to 

 transfer the name of "vastator" from the innocent Aphis to its ta- 

 lented biographer. 



We may, however, remark that Mr. Smee has selected a rather ex- 

 pensive way of accomplishing his object : on future occasions we 

 should recommend his publishing through the medium of our respect- 

 ed contemporary, ' Punch,' whose columns are ever open to well-in- 

 tended satire. K. 



