I »7 ] 
XIII. Account of the Black Canker Caterpillar, •which defrays 
the Turnips in Norfolk. By William Marshall, Efq. in a 
fetter to Charles Morton, M D. F. R. S. 
FEW months after you did me the honour of prefent- 
ing my minutes of agriculture to the Britifh Mufeum, I 
came down into Norfolk, as agent to SirHARBORD harbord. 
To a perfon intelligent in matters of agriculture it would be 
fuperfluous to fay, that Norfolk is celebrated for good hufband- 
men ; or that the turnip crop is the bafis of the Norfolk 
hufbandry. If a Norfolk farmer lofes his crop of turnips, his 
farm is injured for feveral fucceeding years ; for it is not only 
the lofs of the immediate profit, which would otherwife have 
arifen to him from his bullocks, but his land is deprived of 
the confequent manure and trampling (efleemed highly bene- 
ficial to the light lands of this county) on which his future 
crops of corn are effentially dependant. 
Among the numerous enemies to which turnips are liable, 
none have proved more fatal here than the Black Canker (a 
fpecies of Caterpillar) which in fome years have been fo nu- 
merous as to cut off the farmer’s hopes in a few days. In 
other years, however, the damage has been little, and in 
others nothing. About twenty years ago the whole country 
Read February 8, 1785. 
8 I R, 
Gunton, near Aylfliam, Nerfeft 
Auguft 22, 1782. 
Vol. LXX 1 II. 
F f 
was 
