BKETLE CLEAKING MACHINE. 71 



Wrote me as follows regarding the apparatus as it then was. Siuce then 

 gradual alterations and improvements have been made, especially in 

 the arrangements for brushing the plant, wbich I can say from my own 

 personal examination of the details of the machine must add much to 

 its efficiency. 



Mr. H. L. Leonard wrote me on the 17th of August : — " Through 

 the kindness of the inventor, Mr. Cole Ambrose, Stuntney Hall, Ely, 

 I was permitted to witness the working of a machine for catching the 

 Mustard Beetles. I should describe the framework as similar to that 

 of a horse-rake without the teeth ; from the top bar hang five shallow 

 pans about two feet six inches long, two inches deep, and made the 

 same width as the Mustard seed rows are drilled apart. The pans just 

 clear the ground, and in each is placed about an inch of common tar. 

 Some light pieces of wood are so placed that they lightly brush tlie 

 plant as the machine moves along, and almost every beetle drops into 

 the tar and perishes. 



" Nothing could be more successful in its work than this beetle- 

 catcher ; it is so very simple that it cannot get out of order, a pony 

 pulls it, a man and a boy are sufficient to go with it ; it goes over 

 about twenty acres a day, and it does not injure the plant in any way, 

 even when it is coming into flower. 



" It has not been in the hands of the general public yet ; but Mr. 

 Cole Ambrose has two hundred acres of beautiful Mustard seed, whilst 

 his neighbours have had their crop destroyed. The machine catches 

 the Phadori betulcB and the Meligeihes aneus equally well." — (H. L. L.) 



The following report of his views as to the serviceableness of this 

 beetle clearing machine was also sent me by Mr. James Egar, of 

 The Rookery, Guyhirn, Wisbech, on the 8th of August : — " Mustabd 

 Beetle. — A machine has been invented, and very successful for 

 collecting them, by Mr. Cole Ambrose, Ely. I was invited by Messrs. 

 Keen & Co., Mustard crushers, to inspect it at work on Mr. Ambrose's 

 farm, and found it work admirably. Very efficient in its collection of 

 the pest ; it proved itself so in two ways, — leaving no beetles on the 

 Mustard, and almost an innumerable lot on the emptying places at end 

 of field." 



About a week later, Mr. Egar wrote further: — "The invention I 

 mentioned for taking the Mustard Beetle, I am confident is a very 

 valuable machine "; and Mr. Egar further noted, amongst observation 

 of the examiners of the trial operations : — " Firstly, of the presence of 

 the beetles on the Mustard ; then of the thorough clearance of the 

 beetles from the crop ; and thirdly, the ' immense number ' found in 

 the composition for catching them." 



On the 22nd of November, Mr, Ambrose, as I was not able con- 

 veniently to go over to Ely to examine the machine, was good enough 



