547 



Chapter XLIV. 

 ON VERMIN: INSECTS— BIRDS— ANIMALS. 



INSECTS. 



The loss to which the farmer is exposed by vermin of various kinds, from 

 the time of putting the seed into the ground until the reaping and disposal 

 of his crops, is often very great. That of seed, chiefly occasioned by my- 

 riads of insects, is incalculably great, for they may be justly said "to have 

 established a kind of universal empire over the earth and its inhabitants ; 

 which is principally conspicuous in the injury which it occasions*." 

 Their inroads can, indeed, be only partially avoided by careful tillage ; 

 tliough the ravages of grubs, slugs, caterpillars, and the destructive wire- 

 worm — more than sixty different species of which latter insect are said to 

 occur in Great Britain — have in some instances been prevented by mixing 

 the seed with soot, or by immersing it in train oil, as well as in water strongly 

 impregnated with soot. Top-dressings of quick-lime and soot have also been 

 found useful for that purpose; but the latter substance cannot always be ob- 

 tained, and quick-lime is not in all cases beneficial to the land. Flocks 

 of poultry of all sorts, but especially ducks, have also been employed with 

 great advantage in fields which have been thus infested, as they devour 

 great quantities of worms ; and if a sufficient number be turned in, thev will 

 certainly prevent much mischief. Night rolling, with heavy stone- rollers, 

 is however the most usual remedy, though treading the ground, and 

 trampling it well with cattle, is still more efficient, when the state of the 

 land will admit of it ; but nothing is so effectual as a clean summer fallowf. 



Ants also, though not destroying any great quantities of corn, yet col- 

 lect considerable quantities of lint, hemp, and rape-seed, and congregating 

 together in vast numbers, are in many cases so very prejudicial to old 

 grass-land by the little mounds which they raise upon the surface, that pas- 

 tures may sometimes be seen filled, at short distances, with such hillocks, to 

 the great impoverishment of the soil. The most usual mode of removing 

 these nests is by cutting off" the crown of the " ant-hill " with a sharp 

 spade of a semicircular form — somewhat in the shape of a week's-old moon 

 with the horns at about ten inches distance — and laying it with the grassy 

 side downwards upon the ground. The ants are thus cleared out, the 

 clods being completely pulverized and thrown around, and the hole is left 

 empty for three or four weeks to secure the destruction, by the frost and 

 rain, of any insects which may still remain ; after which the sod is replaced 

 in its former position and trodden, or rolled down, until even with the sur- 

 face. The operation is commonly done at any leisure time during the 

 winter; but some farmers either burn the clods, or else put quick-lime 

 in the holes before digging them up, in which case they deem it preferable 

 to defer the process until the early part of the spring, as a top-dressing is 

 thus formed for the growth of the seeds \. 



In alluding, however, to the destruction of seed by insects, we must not 



* Introd. to Entomology, by Kirby and Spence, 



f It is stated in the Gardener's Magazine, that if cabbage-leaves be heated in an 

 oven, and afterwards immersed in melted kitchen-stuff, or any unsalted grease, theu 

 spread over the land, they will in a few hours be covered with snails and slugs, and may 

 be gathered off along with the worms. No. xxxvii. 



X Marshall's Rur. Econ. of Norfolk, vol. i. ; Essex Survey, vol. ii., p. 97 ; and vol. i., 

 p. 164, containing a plate which represents a machine for cutting up ant-hills. 



2 N 2 



