898 



to mitigate the ravages of such creatures, surely it would be instruc- 

 tive to look into the minute works of the same hand that formed the 

 most mighty. 



' How sweet to muse upon His skill displayed, 

 (Infinite skill !) in all that He has made, 

 To trace in nature's most minute design 

 The signature and stamp of Power Divine.' " 



Mr. Andrews remarked " that there was no case more difficult to 

 deal with than the present, nor one that has had so many advocates 

 of such extremely opposite views and tendencies. From the earliest 

 date of the introduction of the potato into Britain, the tuber has been 

 subject to failure, from variableness of climate, or unsuitableness of 

 the tuber for planting ; in fact, it has ever been a crop of uncertainty. 

 The great extent to which the potato has been cultivated in this 

 country, is encouraged by the economy of its treatment, the poorer 

 lands it can adapt itself to, and, above all other esculent roots, its 

 nutritive properties as a general and daily food for the poorer classes. 

 A short time since I read an article from the ' Waterford Mirror,' 

 published more than thirty years since, detailing losses of the potato 

 crop almost as extensive as those of 1845. We must all admit that 

 the ravages of insects have been most destructive to vegetable life, as 

 endless instances, in every part of the world, can be given. When 

 the vegetative and nutrimentalive powers of the stems are cut short, 

 whether affected by insect agency or atmospheric causes, the growth 

 of the tuber must be more or less checked, to the destruction of its 

 mature development. My friend Dr. Bellingham, in this Society, in 

 November, 1845, gave a very able statement of the action of electrical 

 influence on the potato crops, detailing very fully the history and the 

 causes of the disease ; and, indeed, in some measure his statements 

 were subsequently borne out. Naturalists well know what injuries had 

 been caused by the several species of Cecidomyia, as the Hessian fly, 

 wheat-midge, barley-midge, &c. The plant-mite, or red spider {Aca- 

 rus tellarius), is also most destructive to plants, and even to trees. 

 Practical observations are at all times most valuable, and desired by 

 the Society. Mr. Nuttall has most candidly submitted his experi- 

 ence ; yet, on a subject still beset with such diffiulties, the patient 

 investigations of science must be brought to bear, before sound 

 deductions can be arrived at." 



Mr. Williams said he had noticed the destructive powers of insects 

 to plants. In the greenhouse, the Oleander was so infested as only 

 to be preserved by constant washing. 



