ANNUAL ADDRESS, MDCCCLXX. 



much interest not forgetting that disease which has pro- 

 duced so much alarm in the rearers. Two or three years 

 back the turnips in every field were seen to droop in an 

 extraordinary manner in the month of August. If you 

 noticed a field, you would find that every turnip was affected. 

 The loss even in our own country must have amounted to 

 thousands of pounds. Upon examination, it was found 

 that every turnip near its crown was being devoured by a 

 grub, the larva, Mr. Earl thinks, of an agrotis. By scraping 

 away the soil, five or six of these creatures were found at 

 every bulb, eating great holes in it. So easily were they 

 found, that a few boys and girls collected pecks of them 

 in a day or two, quite clearing the roots of these destroyers, 

 and saving the crop of a whole field. A few days after, 

 to assist us, rain fell ; and a vigorous growth is the best 

 help of the plants to overcome such devastations, as is 

 also seen with the turnip flea (a beetle be it observed). 

 What was curious, further depredations being prevented 

 by the enemy being sought out and destroyed, the larger 

 holes became cicatrised, and the turnips were a tolerably 

 fair sample after all. I consider that I saved them by 

 attention to these grubs. 



I might take an instance from the vegetable kingdom 

 of a very humble natural product being of great importance, 

 (cotton, the flocculent bed of the seeds in the pericarp of 

 the gossipium), and spin as long a yarn as in the case of 

 the silkworm. The gist of my observations is that the 

 subjects of our studies and the studies themselves are not 

 to be despised. No man can excel in agriculture, in 

 gardening, in medicine, without a knowledge of certain 

 <]()>; i rtments of natural history. The farmer may well study 

 insects and their depredations, the bree'der Darwin's work 

 on the origin of species, the horticulturist his later work 



