HESSIAN FLY. 
29 
“ I herewith send you some stalks of Barley with caterpillar in 
them, which I fear is Hessian Fly. The field where they grew is on 
high ground, and has not got dung of any kind for sixteen years, the 
crop having always been sown with light manures. Last year the 
Turnips on it were a fair crop, and two-thirds of them were eaten on 
the ground by sheep, along with linseed-cake and hay made from 
natural grass. If this is Hessian Fly, how has it got there ; the field 
being surrounded on three sides by grass and on the fourth by hill- 
ground, and no fly having been in the neighbourhood last year.”— 
(Signed, “ Strathmore.”) 
On July 21st Mr. D. Taylor, of Daleally, Errol, N.B., who was the 
chief and earliest observer in Scotland in 1886, as Mr. Palmer was in 
England, reported the reappearance on his land of the attack ; and 
the following letter from Mr. Taylor shows the much more obvious 
condition of attack at Daleally at above date, in 1887, than in the 
preceding year:— 
“ I went through some of our fields yesterday, and I find the Barley 
much broken down, a great deal more so than was the case last year; 
even if one did not know about the system of the attack, they could 
not fail to be attracted by the vast number of broken-down stalks. I 
went through our barley last year, and tried to find out the reason of 
so many black ill-favoured heads, but there was certainly not much 
broken down; the attack must have taken place later than it has done 
this year. You may have observed that the specimens of stems I sent 
were many of them pretty strong, and bore a good head, and the 
point of attack was almost invariably just above the second joint. 
This year the attack I find is mostly above the first joint, the part 
below in some cases much decomposed, the stalk-growth seriously 
stunted and prematurely withered, the head only partially shot, and 
in many cases the whole stool dead.” 
On July 25th I was favoured with the following note from 
Mr. Robert Carmichael, of Drumpliin Farm, near Crieff, Perthshire, 
which is of special interest, as giving, besides notes of locality of 
attack in the Carse of Gfowrie, particulars of the condition of attack at 
Drumphin, compared with observations taken on that ground in the 
previous year. 
Mr. Carmichael forwarded specimens of the attack which he had 
found on the previous day “ in one field of Wheat ” and four fields of 
Barley on two farms on the Braes of the Carse of Gowrie, about four 
miles north from Errol, where so much of the “ flax-seed ” was found 
last autumn. I also to-day looked over our own and two adjacent 
farms, on each of which I found the Barley more or less broken down 
by the pest; on no field I examined did I fail to find it. There is this 
peculiarity in this year’s attack that I did not notice last year,—the 
