224 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the present, found serious trouble to result. But in addition to the 

 examination of the bulbs I think two other precautions should be taken. 

 One is that the ground should be thoroughly well worked before planting 

 takes place, and the other is that ground which has been subjected to a 

 bad attack should not be again used for daffodils for at least a year after 

 the affected bulbs have been removed. 



The only case I can recall in which freshly planted bulbs have been 

 seriously injured occurred when I planted a batch of ' Maurice Vilmorin ' 

 in a spot in a mixed border from which the remnants of a group of 

 1 Flora Wilson ' had been taken up a month or two before. The latter 

 had been almost destroyed during the previous year. The position 

 selected was in the middle of a mixed border : it had not been found 

 practicable to effectively work the ground after the affected bulbs were 

 taken away, and no doubt the caterpillars when hatched out found 

 subsistence on the roots of other plants until they discovered the newly 

 planted daffodils. 



If I am right in thinking that annual lifting of the bulbs and working 

 the ground carefully before replanting affords a means of avoiding the 

 troubles caused by the pest, this may perhaps explain why so little has 

 been heard of the caterpillar before this. Nurserymen are from the 

 necessity of their business in the habit of practising both these pre- 

 cautions, as well as of carefully cleaning their bulbs before sending them 

 out, and so the large growers may have escaped being affected by the 

 moth. 



I have arrived at this conclusion with reluctance, because, in the first 

 place, the annual lifting of all the daffodils, even where only a moderate 

 number of plants are grown, is rather a serious undertaking and an 

 uncomfortable disturbance of the borders ; and besides this I think that 

 many daffodils seem to produce their best blooms only if they are allowed 

 to remain in the ground for two or three years without any disturbance. 



However this be, so far as my experience goes down to the present 

 the annual lifting and replanting seems the most effective way of 

 combating the evil I have described. 



I am indebted to Mr. Henry Ellis for identifying the moth and for 

 making many suggestions. 



