12 



Where the enemy is an animal ; — as we have good reason 

 to believe every animal (at least insect) has its own poison, 

 the theorist, by diversifying the experiments he orders, may 

 be fortunate enough to discover what will be injurious to 

 the hostile insect. 



Some of these are known to us, and (like the FLY so 

 mischievous to our turnips) provoke the attack: — the 

 slug, and cutworm, I find formidable enemies to our young 

 mangel wurzel, and often oblige me to repair their depre- 

 dations by new plants, and, as the season advances, to fill 

 up the vacancies they have occasioned, by a quicker-grow- 

 ing vegetable, requiring the very same culture, — the 

 potato. 



That new enemies are pouring in upon us from the 

 animal kingdom, is a fact too well known. Mr. Clerk 

 thinks the mosquito, the torment of the inhabitants of tro- 

 pical climates, is advancing on our more temperate re- 

 gions. The cyder counties in England are alarmed by 

 the invasion of new animalculae, hostile to their apple- 

 trees ; and the peach, for a century the luxury of St. 

 Helena, which had proved a favourite soil and chmate 

 for that most delicious fruit, has been nearly exterminated 

 in that island, by an insect imported from the Cape of 

 Good Hope with the Constantia grape, but which seems 

 to have considered the peach-tree as a more appropriate 

 nidus ;— the lamentations of the inhabitants on this unex- 

 pected calamity, are pitiable. 



The most formidable of the disorders by which our 

 crops are injured, and for which the most numerous reme- 

 dies have been suggested, seems to be the smut in wheat; 

 this too I suspect to arise from the depredations of ani- 

 malculse. The weight of the mischief requires unremitted 

 exertions, and the steady co-operation of the theorist and 



