1870.] Agriculture. 511 



left the showyard of the Society full of the best specimens of the 

 finest breeds of all lands of farm stock and every new agricultural 

 machine, saw nothing of either on the " best-managed farm " which 

 he walked over in the afternoon. He saw, however, magnificent 

 crops of grain, and roots, and grass, obtained without their aid, and 

 he might conclude that what was wanted for the improvement of 

 English agriculture was not a Society stimulating the production 

 of the best machines and live stock, but an agency for making 

 farmers more energetic and laborious in the use of the common 

 means already everywhere at their command. 



This agency it is plain exists in an improved relationship between 

 the landlord and the tenant. The nature of the best farm agreement 

 has been the subject latterly of frequent discussion in the agricultural 

 journals. The lease for a term of years, with freedom to cultivate 

 the land as the tenant chooses up till within a few years of the close 

 of the term, is certainly the system which gives freest scope to the 

 intelligence and energy of the tenant, and most likely therefore to 

 result in industrious and successful cultivation. 



An interesting paper " On Wheat Flies " appears in the ' Agri- 

 cultural Gazette,' from which we learn that Cecidomyia tritici, to 

 which Professor Henslow drew attention thirty years ago as the 

 most destructive wheat midge of his time, is no longer prevalent ; 

 and that the complaints now common of injury from the wheat 

 midge are due to Lasicjrferyx obfuscata. The former is a yellow 

 fly, the latter black. The insect is not easily bred, neither Mr. 

 Kirby, Mr, Curtis, nor Professor Henslow having succeeded. The 

 successes of Miss Eleanor Ormerod, of Sedbury Park, Chepstow, 

 which are recorded in the ' Agricultural Gazette,' seem to have 

 been wholesale, notwithstanding her failures in detail. She placed 

 on earth in different flower-pots, grubs and pupae, with the ears and 

 stalks to which they respectively adhered, as well from wheat as 

 barley, protecting each with a covering of gauze or muslin. These 

 were kept in the most natural conditions, and carefully watched 

 and tended all through the winter and spring, without producing 

 anything ; but a small heap of wheat rubbish, which had been as- 

 certained to be well supplied with grubs and pupae, was left in an 

 out-of-the-way corner by itself, and early in June was found to be 

 swarming with a cloud of these small Cecidomyia-looking midges, 

 viz. Lasiopteryx. " Numbers of these," says the writer whom we are 

 quoting, " were also obtained, and sent to us from the wheat fields at 

 different dates, but not a single specimen of the Cecidomyia tritici 

 reached us. Now, is this abundance of Lasiopteryx and scarcity of 

 Cecidomyia confined to the neighbourhood of Chepstow, or is it 

 general over the whole country ? If so, another question, which 

 however, we can scarcely hope to fathom, is — when Cecidomyia 

 ceased to be prevalent, and Lasiopteryx took its place. It may 



