58 



PRACTICE OF GARIIENING. 



earth, wliich. should be lightly beaten or trodden down, 

 and afterwards well raked in the same direction as the 

 drills, and not in a contrary direction, which would dis- 

 turb the seed and cause it to come up irregularly. For 

 a bed four feet broad and twelve feet long, about a 

 quarter of an ounce of seed is enough. 



When the seed leaves get through the ground they are 

 often devoured by a small jumping beetle, not much 

 larger than a caraway seed, called the fly, flea, or black 

 jack, though it is rather a shining bluish green than black, 

 with two lighter streaks along the wing-cases ; but there 

 are several species similar. According to M. Bouch^, the 

 eggs are laid in July, and the dusky-brown grubs are 

 hatched in the following May. They lie in the pupa 

 state fifteen days, and the beetles appearing in July, die 

 after they lay their eggs. Turnips, therefore, if M. Bouche 

 is correct, when sown after the middle of August and out 

 of their seed-leaf before May, are safe from this, though 

 not from other species. At other times, radish seed, or, 

 what is much cheaper, rape, may be sown between the 

 turnip drills for the beetles to feed on, and save the 

 turnips ; or the turnips may be sown thickly. If the seed- 

 leaves of the crop are devoured, as is frequently the case, 

 the seeds will not again vegetate, and the ground must 

 then be very superficially dug over, and another sowing 

 made. Tobacco-water and powdered quicklime may be 

 sprinkled over the plants, but, it is believed, with doubtful 

 success. The same may be said of the green or mealy fly, 

 a sort of aphis, and several sorts of caterpillars, particu- 

 larly a blackish one of a saw-fly, for which a flock of ducks 

 turned into the crop to devour them is said to be effec- 

 tual. The green-fly above mentioned may, however, be 

 efiectually destroyed by sprinkling strong tobacco-water 

 over the young plants. Steeping the seed in various ways 

 must be idle, and may be injurious ; it can never do much 

 good. Even were insect eggs laid on the seeds, which 

 they certainly are not, no steep would kill them without 

 killing the seed. 



When the plants escape their enemies, and are just be- 

 ginning to form their third or rough leaf, they ought to be 

 successively thinned out to nine inches between each, 



