affecling the Turnip-Crops. 
117 
ing or dustina: ; Jvnd catching and destroying the moths, if prac- 
ticable, would not be an effectual remedy, for the females would 
escape the strictest search, tluMr colours being so grave and similar 
to the earth, that no one could discover them when at rest in the 
daytime ; and fires or other means employed at night to attract and 
destroy the moths would only reduce the number of mcdes, leav- 
ing the females, which seldom fly, and a sufficient number of their 
mates, to supply the succeding generations. 
Although the following remedies apply to corn-crops when at- 
tacked by the Surface-caterpillars^ I shall introduce them here, as 
they may bear in some measure upon the turnips and guide the 
farmer when they visit his lands. 
Late sowing, as it regards corn, would prove the best security in 
autumn, because the larvae would in all probability be starved to 
death before the roots of the corn were ready for them, and it is 
believed that the female moth takes advantage of a fresh-ploughed 
field to deposit her eggs in the soft and moist earth ; if this be the 
case, June and July are the most improper months for sowing 
turnips, so far as regards these caterpillars. The richer the soil, 
the warmer the situation, and the earlier corn is sown, the more 
are the attacks of the Surface-caterpillars to be dreaded, as they 
immediately destroy the immature roots of spring corn. Soils 
rendered strong and warm by horsedung-manure are most infested 
by all sorts of larvae and worms, which is supposed to arise from 
the heat that is generated by the fermentation accelerating the 
hatching of the eggs. 
Steeping the seeds in liquor extracted from bitter herbs,* 
mixed with salt or nitrates, can be of no use unless, by forcing the 
germinating power, the plants are enabled to outgrow the injuries 
they have sustained. If any salts, especially nitrate of ammonia, 
were mixed in sufficient quantities with the soil, there can be no 
doubt of their securing the crops, and, thus applied, liquid manure 
might prove most beneficial. Kollar expresses a fear that, if the 
seeds were rendered bitter and disagreeable to the insects, the 
same properties would be communicated to the grain, thereby 
making it unfit for use, but this opinion is not supported either by 
physiology or experience. 
The Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden f recommended 
one-eighth of a ton of slaked lime to be sifted over I ton of wheat 
when spread out, and to be well mixed with it ; the whole is then 
to be tied up tightly in sacks and laid under the straw in the barn 
for three days, until the wheat becomes thoroughly heated, after 
* Mr. Main states that " watering April-sown cauliflower-seedUngs with 
an infusion of the leaves of artichokes, a liquor bitter enough, will not pre - 
serve them." — Vide the Gardener's Mag. 
+ Kollar's Naturg. du Schiid. Insect., p. 111. 
