INSECT PESTS 183 



summer turnips. Lucerne succeeds on this class of 

 land, and for once in a way we saw a really successful 

 stand that had been obtained by sowing without any 

 cover crop, a proceeding that usually results in a dense 

 growth of annual weeds, threatening to smother the 

 lucerne, with its slow start and thin upright habit 

 until the second season. 



The corn crops were good without being out of the 

 way ; the wheat best on the heavy land and not, as 

 in many districts, much superior to the other cereals ; 

 the barley, as usual, bleached in the intense sunshine 

 and inclined to be a little thin and steely, greatly in 

 need even at this late stage of some rain to mellow it. 

 Beans were, as usual, the failure of the year ; they had 

 been ruined by the black aphis, and another black 

 aphis was curling the leaves of the mangolds, which 

 had also suffered a little from the attacks of the fly, 

 whose larvae burrow in the leaf substance between the 

 two skins. Still, they were a good plant and had made 

 considerable headway. Potatoes were very fine, and 

 had only just begun to check and feel the need of 

 rain ; potatoes, indeed, formed almost the best crop of 

 the year ; the only danger being the likelihood of a 

 second growth when the rain did eventually come to 

 start the warm soil into activity. Probably one of 

 the chief factors in the high quality of the Dunbar 

 potatoes is the equable summer climate that maintains 

 an even, long-continued growth without the pause due 

 to summer drought which so often results in super- 

 tuberation in the south. In this district potatoes 

 constitute one of the most paying crops, Birmingham 

 and South Wales providing accessible and remunerative 

 markets. 



Where so much was sold off the land there was 

 clearly no great opening for stock ; bullocks were 



