106 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. [PART I. 



plants grew well ; but, having looked at the 

 growth of the plots, first sown, and calculated 

 upon the probable advancement of them, I 

 fixed upon the 26tfA of June for the sowing of 

 my principal crop. 



38. I was particularly anxious to know, 

 whether this country were cursed with the 

 Turnip Fly, which is so destructive in England, 

 It is a little insect about the size of a bed flea, 

 and jumps away from all approaches exactly 

 like that insect. It abounds, sometimes, in 

 quantities so great as to eat up all the young 

 plants, on hundreds and thousands of acres in 

 a single day. It makes its attack when the 

 plants are in the seed-leaf; and, it is so very 

 generally prevalent, that it is always an even 

 chance, at least, that every field that is sown 

 will be thus wholly destroyed. There is no 

 remedy but that of ploughing and sowing again ; 

 and this is frequently repeated three times, and 

 even then, there is no crop. Volumes upon 

 volumes have been written on the means of 

 preventing, or mitigating, this calamity; but 

 nothing effectual has ever been discovered ; and, 

 at last, the only means of insuring a crop of 

 Ruta Baga in England, is, to raise the plants in 

 small plots, sown at many different times, in 

 the same manner as cabbages are sown, and, 

 like cabbages, transplant them ; of which mode 

 of culture I shall speak by and by. It is very 



