MUSTARD BEETLE. .67 



" Mr. Young said he strongly supported Miss Ormerod in all her 

 theories on the beetle. Said he top-dressed his Mustard with fish-bone 

 manure, which drove off all the beetles, and they did not return till 

 after rain came, which washed off the strong smell. This year the 

 same gentleman is going to lay ridging tiles all round a field which he 

 will sow with Mustard, and cover them with tar continuously. He 

 knows the field is clear of beetle at present. 



"Another grower said he had always found it better to sow Mustard 

 seed where the beetle had been very numerous in the previous Mus- 

 tard crop, than on a field which had not been previously infested. He 

 had tried an experiment which he thought might be very advantageous 

 if taken up by an experienced machinist. As I understood his idea, it 

 was something like a large well-hollowed shovel on wheels, exactly the 

 width between the rows, just touching the plant at either side ; it is 

 pushed on by a man, and the beetles drop into the shovel alive, and 

 can then be burnt. This is very simple, and I think the idea could be 

 worked out to great advantage.* 



"All growers are agreed that tar is very much objected to by the 

 beetle. One farmer noticed myriads of beetles crossing the road, and 

 through the gateway into his Mustard field. He divided about an acre 

 against the gate from the rest of the field with a broad streak of tar ; 

 every night he renewed the application, and saved all his crop, 

 excepting where the beetles were, which of course was completely 

 destroyed. 



" Another large grower thinks the Mustard Beetle in the early 

 f/rowth of the plant is blamed for more than it does. He thinks that the 

 ordinary Turnip Fly does an immense amount of damage." — (H. L. L.) 



This is a very important point, to ivkicli it seems to me sufficient 

 consideration is not yenerally yiven. Whilst forming my Report on Mustard 

 Beetle for the Royal Ayricultural Society in 1886, I received notes from 

 various correspondents of the injury done to Mustard in the first growth by 

 Turnip Fly, or Flea Beetle. Specimens were sent of the beetles, and of 

 injured leafage, and the infestation was described as ^^ a great trouble by 

 eating the phmt when it first comes up.'' Also, " scarcely a plant remains 

 of the original soioing "; and agaiyi, another correspondent, who forwarded 

 three different kinds of Flea Beetles, mentioned them as destroying the 

 Mustard on that part of the field where the seed-bed ivas not projwrly pre- 

 pared; hut that they were not to he found elsewhere. 



For this kind of attack probably Fisher Hobb's mixture, which is so 

 serviceable as a remedy for Turnip Flea Beetle on young Turnips, ivould be 



* If no more efficient plan is made public before requirements of protection 

 come round again, or if brought forward the implement should be too expensive for- 

 ordinary private purchase, it is to be hoped that the suggester of the above will have 

 it worked into serviceable form. — Ed. 



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