POPULAE SCIENCE BEYIEW. 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE TURNIP CROPS. 
BY EEY. W. HOUGHTON, M.A., F.L.S. 
“ \A7"HAT thou owest, 0 Rome, to tlie Neroes,” says 
V ▼ Horace, in one of the most sublime of his Odes, 
“the River Metaurus and vanquished Hasdrubal are wit- 
nesses ; ” and he had good reason for saying so, for the 
victory of Claudius Nero over HannibaPs troops was a 
decisive one. The tide of conquest was turned; and when 
the great Carthaginian General saw the decapitated head of his 
unfortunate brother thrown into his camp, he was compelled to 
exclaim, “ Agnosco fortunam Cartlictginis ,” — “I acknowledge 
the fate of Carthage.” We may borrow the above-named words 
of the bard of Venusium, and say, “What thou owest, 0 
Agriculturist, to the turnip crc os, the whole science of farm- 
ing, and the cattle, not 'on a thousand hills/ but in a thousand 
stalls, bear witness/*’ For what should we do without turnips ? 
What is the main support of our stalled oxen during the 
winter months ? We may certainly use oil-cake and other 
fattening substances with great advantage ; but still we must 
have our turnips, whose succulent nature is necessary to 
counteract the too stimulating and heating effects of oil- cake, 
barley meal, and other such like food. “ Without the turnip,” 
a writer in Morton's “ Cyclopaedia of Agriculture " remarks, 
“rotations of crops would have been still limited to weedy 
corn and foul pastures, the production of butcher's meat 
would have depended on pasturage, and consequently the 
great mass of the population must still have been condemned 
to a farinaceous diet or salted rations in winter. Under such 
circumstances it is easy to conjecture what must have been 
the result. The cultivation of the potato would have in- 
creased to such an extent, that the whole of Britain must 
VOL. V. — NO. XVIII. B 
