THE I'iiESENT TIME. 9 



opportunity, ought to endeavour to make him- 

 self sufficiently master of the elementary know- 

 ledge needful to this end. It is by these means 

 alone that he can hope to rise to real excellence 

 in carrying on his interesting avocations, as well 

 as to escape the ill effects of many, to him, inex^ 

 plicable contingencies by which he finds him- 

 self constantly thwarted. Happily the BHtish 

 farmer has lately been awakened to the advan- 

 tages afforded him in the laboratory of nature, 

 by the guidance of true philosophy. The 

 period, therefore, seems to have arrived when a 

 popular treatise descriptive of the secrets which 

 the microscope unfolds to the scientific observer, 

 with regard to the hitherto mysterious destroy- 

 ers of the wheat plant, will be both acceptable 

 and useful to this valuable portion of our 

 community, as well as to the public at large. 



These little ravagers of our growing crops of 

 corn are amongst the most wonderful of living 

 organized things ; and although they inflict 

 unspeakable damage under certain circum- 

 stances, their existence, as we shall hereafter 

 notice, embodies great and often beneficent 

 designs. They also call forth the exercise of 

 human ingenuity in the investigation of their 

 habits, and the prevention of the mibehiefs 



