INSECT INJURIES. 391 



produce the effect desired. The best and safest plan, 

 however, is to open the soil on the hills for an inch or 

 two deep, and handpick them ; a few slices of raw potato 

 placed in each hill will draw them together, and render 

 their collection less difficult and tedious, the potatoes 

 beino" left in the hills until no more are to be met with. 



o 



If these insects be not destroyed by some means or other, 

 they will destroy, or, at all events, seriously injure the 

 plants. 



Early in the spring the " hop flea or beetle " makes 

 its appearance on the young leaves and shoots, fre- 

 quently, if the weather be suitable, appearing in such 

 numbers as to destroy all the vegetation as it appears 

 above ground, and arresting for the time all appearance 

 of growth. This is the Haltica con- 

 cinna, a species closely allied to the 

 common turnip-fly, but broader and 

 more convex in shape. They are of 

 a copper or brassy tint, the wing- 

 cases having about twenty lines of 

 strong dots, and cover a pair of 

 ample wings. They are met with 

 abundantly from March up to 



AugUSt, in WOOdy fields and hedge- x> 2 H opfleaorbeetle-J?Kt C 



rows, living on nettles, grasses, &c., 

 and attacking any cultivated plant, 

 as hops, that suits their palate. Several remedies have 

 been recommended for catching and destroying them ; 

 but, like the turnip-fly, they are very difficult to catch. 

 Probably the best defence against them is to cover up 

 the young shoots with 4 to 5 inches of fine mould, which 

 gives them security against injury for several days, whe 

 the bines have acquired more strength, and get away 

 faster out of their reach. If much injury has been done 

 to them, the application of a little rich manure, as Peru- 



