366 OBSERVATIONS ON BLIGHT. 



have been easy enough to have poked them off with a needle, 

 but I could not see how I was to employ a needle and a 

 magnifying glass on a sack of turnip-seed ; I recollected, how- 

 ever, that I had found that some salt and water into which I 

 bad once unintentionally dropped a paper of silkworms' eggs had 

 killed them to an egg ; it was therefore worth while trying in 

 this case : I accordingly made some pretty strong brine, and 

 soaked the seed in it for twenty-four hours, then dried it 

 thoroughly, and with all the precautions I have mentioned 

 above I sowed it again, and with a kind of success — there was 

 not a single fly, but neither was there a turnip. Nothing dis- 

 couraged at this, I tried again and again, and I found that, 

 without weakening the brine, if the seed was only kept in it 

 three hours, there were no beetles, but yet the seed came up 

 as well as ever. I now practise this with turnip-seed, cabbage- 

 seed, and, in fact, with the seed of all the cruciform flowering 

 plants in common cultivation, (all of them being equally in- 

 fested by the beetle,) and with very satisfactory success. I 

 cannot say that I never find beetles on the young plants, but I 

 never have a crop destroyed, or even seriously injured by them. 

 The whole of the experiments mentioned above were made on 

 the Swede turnip, which I find is generally more infested by 

 these beetles than any of our older sorts. The experiments 

 were all made prior to the year 1823, and have been waiting 

 for a suitable opportunity of publication ; the liberal mode of 

 conducting your magazine affords that opportunity ; and allow 

 me to express the pleasure which a writer feels in seeing his 

 own handywork appear in print. If an article is to have a 

 slice cut out here and another there, in the obsequious endea- 

 vour to oblige some literary impostor, whose fame is to be kept 

 up by the suppression of public opinion, then good-by to 

 editorial independence. 



A word more in support of the idea that the beetle lays 

 eggs on the seed of the turnip. First, Self-sown turnip-seed 

 is more infested than when sown in the usual way ; Secondly, 

 when turnip-seed is harvested over-ripe, as in very hot dry 

 seasons, the produce has much more fly than when harvested 

 unripe, or in wet and cold seasons ; in these instances it is 

 certain, from the exposure of the seed, both in ripening and 

 falling, that the beetles must have much better opportunities 

 for depositing their eggs on it ; Thirdly, on shaking the 



