the Attacks of Insects and Fungi. 
219 
upon the report of the French Director of Agriculture, from 
which it is also seen that more than 3,000,000 acres, or half of 
the vineyards of France, were entirely destroyed by this insect. 
The rest of the vineyards were saved from destruction by the 
persistent use of most expensive remedies and methods of pre- 
vention, which have now to be constantly employed ; these, and 
the substitution of American vines — supposed to be phylloxera 
proof — for the indigenous varieties, have succeeded in restoring 
comparative prosperity to the French cultivators of the vine. 
The tiny flea-beetle known as the " fly " literally devours the 
turnip crop in some seasons, causing pecuniary loss that can 
hardly be estimated. In 1881 the attack of this beetle was very 
general and disastrous in England and Scotland. Miss Ormerod, 
in her elaborate report upon an inquiry made for the Seeds and 
Plant Diseases Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society, con- 
siders that the direct loss in twenty-two English and eleven 
Scotch counties was more than half a million of money, merely 
for seed, sowing, and resowing, with the necessary cultivation. 
The indirect loss from the failure of food for stock in these 
circumstances can hardly be estimated, but it must have been 
enormous. In most dry seasons this turnip beetle is immensely 
destructive in parts of the country. 
The hop aphis has frequently reduced the hop crop from its 
estimated annual average of seven cwt. per acre to one and a half 
or two cwt. per acre, entailing the loss of close upon a million 
sterling.' But in these later days science and energy have tri- 
umphed over the enemy, so that a "blight" in hops, with its 
ruinous consequences, may be averted if the proper measures 
are taken. 
Among the latest calamities that have befallen English 
producers through insect agency is the wholesale onslaught 
made upon fruit-trees by innumerable caterpillars of various 
moths, so that in several fruit-growing counties hundreds of 
acres of apple, plum, and damson trees have been stripped of 
leaves, blossoms, and fruit in the last three or four years, 
and the crops of red currants and raspberries have been nipped 
in the bud. Against the attacks upon fruit trees the most 
efficacious remedy has so far proved to be syringing or spray- 
ing the trees with " arsenites," as Paris Green and London 
Purple, which are extensively used in the United States for 
severe attacks of insects. 
The sawfly (Nematus rihesii), or rather its larva, frequently 
' This aphis is termed by E. J. Lance, in his work entitled The Hop 
Farmer, " This blighter, this barometer of poverty 1 " 
Q 2 
