TURNIP FLY. *1 



evaporation proceeds rapidly, and the moisture is soon dissipated ; 

 hence vegetation takes place slowly and unevenly, and the young 

 plants are eaten off as they appear. 



When the land is manured and receives a deep furrow during dry 

 weather in autumn, the ameliorating effects of the winter's rain and 

 frosts reduce the surface to a fine tilth, and a shallow scuffling, to 

 destroy the growth of annual weeds before sowing, preserves the 

 moisture, insuring a rapid growth of the young plants. 



On the best Turnip land of the Midland Counties we prefer the 

 ridge system of cultivation. The land, when reduced to a fine tilth, 

 is ridged, the farmyard and artificial are applied, and at once covered 

 in, and the seed immediately sown, whilst the soil is still fresh, on 

 ridges twenty-seven inches apart. We never use less than three pounds 

 of seed ; we have always found thick seeding a great preventive 

 against the inroads of the fly. Even when large quantities of farm- 

 yard manure are available, we prefer an addition of two to three 

 hundredweight of artificial manures per acre, which rapidly pushes the 

 plant through the time of its first leaves, or cotyledonous stage. In 

 the chalks and drier climate of the south we prefer sowing on the flat ; 

 here we have found the water-drill of great use in giving the young 

 plants a speedy start in trying seasons. Great injury is often done by 

 rolling the land before the surface is quite dry, and thus forming 

 a crust, through which the young plants have great difficulty in 

 forcing their way. In short, a fine tilth, plenty of seed sown at once 

 before the moisture has time to evaporate, the land lightly rolled, and 

 the use of a fair quantity of phosphate manures are, in our expe- 

 rience, the best antidotes against the attacks of the Turnip Fly. 

 (G. M.) 



The Turnip Fly seldom attacks Turnips and the like severely 

 enough to destroy them when they are sown on a " stale " fallow 

 (that is, on land ploughed in the autumn and laid as fallow during the 

 winter and spring following), free from weeds and in a friable state, 

 and are drilled in with superphosphate. Those suffer most that are 

 drilled in after a previous green crop, such as Bye, Whiter Oats, 

 Vetches, &c. Early-sown crops generally suffer most. We seldom 

 suffer (locality Mere, Wiltshire, ED.) to any extent after midsummer. 

 This year early Turnips, Bape, &c., were almost annihilated, but 

 since the first week in June nothing has been seen of the fly ; and on 

 our Wiltshire hills we never suffer so much as in the valleys. (T. B.) 



As far as my experience goes, the fly does not go on stale mould as 

 badly as on freshly turned-up soil, and is not very troublesome if the 

 wintered or frosted mould is kept for the seed-bed. I have known the 

 fly begin on one side of the field and spread rapidly over it, but 

 I have never known them in anything like this quantity on stale 



