Mustard Beetles. 



1017 



over the Dinteloord factory in November, most of the sugar 

 had already been sold at good prices in advance of manufac- 

 ture. 



From the farmers' point of view, the co-operative factory is 

 no doubt the ideal way of going to work : the agriculturist 

 gets his profits as a beet grower and his dividend as a sugar 

 manufacturer. 



The managing director of the Dinteloord factory, who has 

 large farming interests in Zeeland, told me that he would 

 obtain 43 tons of beet per hectare (2 J acres), over an area of 1 18 

 hectares. He reckoned in fact that his crop would be over 

 5,000 tons. The analysis of his first cargo to arrive at the 

 factory reached the high sugar percentage of 19*3, and in 

 later cargoes he had touched 17 and higher, but, he said, " now 

 the rain has come I may be down to 16 per cent." The highest 

 sugar percentage is obtained after wheat and the least after 

 clover and green manure. The English farmer who reads 

 this should remember, of course, that this is experienced culture 

 on highly suitable land. 



MUSTARD BEETLES. 

 R. Stewart MacDougall, M.A., D.Sc, 

 The Mustard Beetle (Phaedon betulae, Kiist). 



Among mustard enemies, Phaedon betulae, Kiist (armo- 

 raciae, L.) is very destructive, both as adult and as larva; 

 the leaves especially are destroyed, but the shoots are also 

 gnawed. Scarcely a year passes without some damage by 

 this beetle, and now and again many acres of mustard are 

 spoiled by it. In 1^86 Miss Ormerod collated a number of 

 replies from mustard growers concerning this and other 

 insect enemies of mustard, and made a report, which was 

 printed in abstract in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society for 1897, ar >d more fully in the Ormerod Annual 

 Report for 1897. 



Phaedon betulae, often known as the mustard beetle, while 

 choosing mustard as a favourite crop for feeding and breed- 

 ing on, uses as food plants other Crucifers, e.g., cabbage, 

 rape, turnip, swede, cress, and charlock. The beetle is found 

 in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Complaints concerning 

 it come to the Board chiefly from the east of England, but 



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