334 TRANSACTIOXS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



not prefer eating turnips, it likes wild radish, mustard and some 

 others. From these and the plants around the field they are 

 always ready to meet the young turnip, and so quickly that it was 

 supposed that they were in the soil. 



No specific remedy has yet been discovered. I have tried all 

 things : coating the turnip seed with oil, sulphur, steeped in 

 strongest brine, in assafoetida, soot, a mixture of soot, salt, lime, 

 and assafoetida used as a top dressing. A sprinkling of road 

 dust has proved good. I used a mixture of road dust, lime and 

 sulphur, gas lime and soot. I am obliged to recommend great 

 plenty of seed and a rich soil. I believe that I have narrowed 

 the field of enquiry. 



The oyster plant was highly recommended by the Rev. Mr. 

 Weaver, of Fordham, but he thought it a slander on the oyster 

 to compare it with food made of this plant. 



PLANT-LICE. 



Dr. Trimble. — The English Parliament do not consider this 

 subject beneath their notice, and have appointed committees to 

 investigate the subject. From the best evidence that could be 

 obtained it was shown that there is no remedy that will prove 

 effectual for their destruction. The only practicable thing ap- 

 peared to be manual labor to search for and crush the eggs. 

 Ants are the greatest friends of plant-lice, for they feed upon a 

 sweet substance secreted by the lice. At the first appearance of 

 plant-lice is the time to commence their destruction. If allowed 

 to multiply once or twice, their numbers become so great that 

 there is no power known to us that will rid the plants of them. 



Wm. Lawton recommended the fumigation of plants by tobacco 

 to rid them of lice. 



THE LOCUSTS. 



Dr. Trimble thinks that the locusts do not lie dormant in the 

 earth seventeen years, but live and feed upon the roots of trees, 

 and that it is this feeding that has drawn the sustenance from 

 fruit trees, so as to render them partially barren. Last year the 

 locusts were above ground, and did not feed on the roots, and we 

 had a good crop. 



John G. Bergen objected to this theory, as it is not applicable 

 to Long Island, where fruit has often failed, and the locusts have 

 never been known there. 



