52 



INJURIOUS INSECTS AND FUNGI. 



[Sept. 1894. 



If clover-leys, or other land for autumn sowing, are manured 

 with farmyard manure, it is desirable that the mixens should be 

 turned a short time before the manure is carted out, to cause 

 heating, as stale mixens harbour weeds and the eggs of the 

 Daddy Longlegs. 



When an attack of the grub is noticed in grass-land a dressing of 

 soot and lime, in the proportion of 1 part of lime to 3 parts of soot, 

 should be put on. A mixture of one-and-a-half hundredweight 

 of nitrate of soda and three hundredweight of common salt per 

 acre has been proved to check the grubs, and at the same time 

 stimulate the growth of the grass. 



Mangels are also subject to the attack of these grubs. Frequent 

 horse-hoeings have been found to disturb them, and dressings of 

 nitrate of soda and salt in the proportions just given have been 

 applied in such cases with success. 



Where injury is feared from these grubs, owing to the appear- 

 ance of unusual numbers of Daddy Longlegs in the autumn, it 

 would be well to apply gas-lime to the land, or soot and lime ; 

 and in the case of pasture-land to harrow and roll it well. 



Natural Enemies. 



Rooks, starlings, peewits, and other birds, devour the grubs in 

 a wholesale manner. Starlings are especially useful when they 

 congregate after the breeding season. It has been noticed that 

 meadows and marshes near rookeries have escaped injury while 

 grass-lands at some distance from these sustained much harm. 



Larch Disease. 



In the ForstwissenschaftlicJies Centralhlatt reference is made 

 to a method of extirpating larch canker, which is stated to have 

 been tried with complete success in a forest at Markersbach. 

 Branches covered with fructifications of Peziza calycina, as well 

 as those attacked by canker, were cut off and burned. Diseased 

 larches were completely removed wherever this was possible. 

 So carefully was this work executed that, on a subsequent 

 examination, no larches infested with canker could be found. 

 The same treatment was applied in another locality, and again 

 resulted in complete success. 



The Turnip Aphis and the Cabbage Aphis 

 (Aphis rapm and Aphis hrassicoi). 



These aphides are sometimes most injurious to cultivated 

 plants of the Brassica group, and they have caused considerable 

 harm this season in some districts, especially to swedes and 

 turnips. 



