20 



I mentioned my smoking-fly preventative scheme, after 

 dinner, at our Society's Annual Meeting, I got a little 

 smoked myself; but having had, last year, a full crop of 

 Swedes, which was a very rare sight, I have had the satis- 

 faction this year (1836), to see my plan adopted on the 

 farm of the Noble Patron of our Society, and on many 

 other farms in the. county. I think my smoking plan might 

 be serviceable to protect hops from the insects which attack 

 them. The fly commences, and ceases to commit its depre- 

 dations, at such different times, in different seasons, that no 

 one can with any degree of certainty fix the time for sowing, 

 when the crop shall be least likely to be injured. The fly 

 likes only the smooth seed leaf of the turnip, if that is 

 eaten, the plant dies. When they cannot meet with seed- 

 leaves, they will eat boles in the rough leaf, but they 

 cannot thus destroy the plant. When corn crops are 

 mowed, they will then prey on the young clover plants. No 

 one has yet been able to prove where the fly is produced. 

 Some assert that it comes out of the earth ; others that it is 

 bred in the seed. I made an experiment two years ago, 

 which satisfied me and all those I showed it to, that it 

 comes out of neither. When my turnips were sown, I 

 covered a piece of land with a large square of thin gauze, 

 which I so fastened down that no insect could creep under 

 it. Under the gauze, the turnips were not touched by ihe 

 fly; all round it, they were eaten and destroyed by it. 

 Where tbe insect is generated, is not known : it flies in the 

 air like other insects, and although it may appear strange to 

 us, it has the power to discover that there is food for it as 

 soon as the turnip leaf appears above ground. I have dwelt 

 long on the cultivation of mangel wurzel and turnips ; but 

 I trust that the generality of my readers will so agree with 

 me as to the great value of these crops as not to think me 

 tedious. 



COMMON TURNIPS are best drilled on a flat surface, 

 fourteen inches asunder, and not before July, excepting for 

 very early consumption, for very large white turnips soon 

 become very pithy, and of little value. When wanted for 

 early winter keep, the Globe and the Decanter, which grow 

 to a great size, and much out of the ground, are the best 



