832 



starch, were planted in a greenhouse, and thoroughly healthy plants 

 were produced. Upon one of the best of the number, when about 

 two feet high, was placed a colony of vastators, which fed and throve 

 abundantly, and which were prevented from travelling to neighbour- 

 ing plants by a covering of gauze. 



" For a time, this plant throve as well as its neighbours, but even- 

 tually the entire haulm died and withered up, as was observed last 

 year in the blighted fields. Its neighbours, which had no insect to 

 suck the vital fluid, were perfectly healthy, forming a striking con- 

 trast to the withered and dead stalk. 



" On examining the collar it was found partially decayed in the 

 manner which 1 have described as being especially attributable to 

 the ravages of Aphides. The roots were found to be extensively rot- 

 ten, and the little tubers, although not one-sixth the bulk of the ori- 

 ginal set, presented a hardness characteristic of disease. 



" The aerial and fungoid theorists have striven hard to divert the 

 attention of the farmer from the ravages of the vastator ; and in the 

 unparalleled virulence of their opposition, they have even frequently 

 substituted acrimony and mis-statement for courtesy and truth. Ne- 

 vertheless, no scientific man in any country has ever disproved my 

 statements, or confuted my deductions ; and if amongst practical 

 men there be one still left who doubts the destructive power of the 

 vastator, 1 beg him to consider deeply and repeat this experiment, 

 that all being of one mind we shall not be diverted upon matters 

 which are irrelevant, but shall be enabled to concentrate our energies 

 in the annihilation of the destroyer, and the protection of our crops. 

 — I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 



" Alfred Smee." 



" 7, Finsbury Circus, 

 April 19, 1847." 



We trust that the ' Phytologist' has not a reader so stolid as to 

 swallow so evident a hoax as this vastator affair appears to be. If 

 there be, let him peruse Mr. Smee's numerous letters in the public pa- 

 pers, and he will find that gentleman very frequently speaking of bota- 

 nists, entomologists, gardeners, &c., as though a knowledge of botany, 

 entomology and horticulture were disqualifications for bringing the 

 inquiry to a successful issue : surely this cannot be in earnest ! surely 

 no surgeon would say, as a matter of self-gratulation, " the anatomists 

 are all against me, but 1 care nothing for that, I have hypotheses that 



