23b JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ike calyx of the two centre buds are very subject to this weakness. 

 The curling of leaf-tips is also caused by irregular conditions or a 

 check, and the only remedy is to give the plants better cultivation 

 and liberate the outer leaves of the young growth. 



Soil pests include wireworm, the three species of Agriotes, eel- 

 worm (Tylenchus devastatrix) , leather-jacket grub (Tipula oleracea) f 

 earthworms, &c. We deal with all these in the same w r ay, by 

 ploughing up in the spring of the year two or three acres of grass turf, 

 sufficient to supply our year's soil requirements from the following 

 autumn. This is ploughed from 4 to 5 inches, and a large number 

 of chickens are allowed to pick it over. When the grass is partly 

 killed it is cross-ploughed, afterwards scarified, then harrowed. During 

 all this time the chickens are picking out the insect pests, and in the 

 late summer, when carted into the soil sheds, there is little to trouble 

 about so far as insect pests are concerned. But for our special seed- 

 lings and novelties the soil is sterilized by steam. This we do during 

 the summer when the soil is very dry, so as not to spoil its texture. 

 I have not dealt with enriching the soil, because it is outside the scope 

 of the lecture. We are well acquainted with all the soil fumigants 

 and other methods of ridding soil of insect pests, but, for practical 

 business men, something must be found more effective before they 

 will be generally commercially adopted. If we are troubled with 

 wireworm in any of our commercial cut-flower houses or trial beds, 

 even in the fields where Dianthus x Allwoodii and Perpetual Border 

 Carnations are grown, we resort to the preventive method of trapping 

 the pest with pieces of carrot or potato. This work is done by school 

 children, who are paid so much a hundred insects caught, and we 

 very easily and cheaply clear the ground ; but where the soil is firmly 

 trodden or rolled, little trouble from soil pests need be feared. 



