76 RUTA BACA CULTURE. Part .L 



all approacliers exactly like that insect. It abounds, 

 at 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 gene*- 

 rally 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 frequent- 

 ly repeated three times, and even then, there is no 

 crop. Volumes upon volumes have been written 

 on the means of preventing, or mitigating, this ca- 

 lamity ; but nothing effectual has ever been disco- 

 vered ; 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 cul- 

 ture 1 shall speak by and by. It is very singular, 

 that a field sown one day, wholly escapes, while 

 a field, sown the next day, is wholly destroyed. 

 Kay, a part of the same field, sown in the morn- 

 ing, will sometimes escape, while the part, sown 

 in the afternoon, will be destroyed ; and, sometimes 

 the afternoon sowing is the part that is spared. 

 To find a remedy for this evil has posed all the 

 heads of all the naturalists a»d chemists of Eng- 

 land. As an evil, the smut in wheat ; the wire- 

 worm ; and the grubs above ground and under 

 ground ; the caterpillars green and black ; the 

 slug red, black and gray ; though each a great tor- 

 mentor, are nothing. Against all these there is 

 &ome remedy, though expensive and plagiiing ; or, 

 at any rate, their ravages are comparatively slow. 

 and their causes are known. But, the iurnip-Jly 

 is the English farmer's evil genius. To discover 

 a remedy for, or the cause of, this plague has beeti 

 the object of inquiries, experimentrj, analysises, 

 innumerable. Premium upon premium offered 



