OF INJURIOUS INSECTS. 
15 
on a piece of ground which, though thus treated, was where Straw¬ 
berries had been grown the previous year, and on this piece the 
attack of the Fly was worse than it had been known for several 
seasons. A few rows at one side were sown on a piece of ground 
which did not require trenching, this having been done the previous 
year; these were comparatively free from the attack of Fly or Grub. 
A few rows in another part of the garden, which had been trenched 
and prepared for Strawberry planting, were comparatively free from 
Grub. Mr. Melville considers that in gardens where Carrot Fly 
abounds Carrots should not be sown where Strawberry plantations 
have been recently dug, or trenched down ; and that if Carrots require 
thinning this should be done when they are an inch or two high, as if 
thinned when from this size to six or eight inches high the Fly seems 
to attack them more readily; he mentions wet weather as the best 
time for thinning, and that his practice is to use the best seed, sow 
thinly, and never thin at all till the Carrots are beyond the reach of 
the Fly, and fit for kitchen use. Mr. Webster, writing from the 
Gardens, Gordon Castle, Fochabers, Banffshire, mentions that this 
year the Carrot crop proved an entire failure; and his report is of 
considerable interest, as in 1878 there was not a single root infested 
in the Carrot crop grown on the same piece of ground, and treated in 
precisely the same manner. Some of the ground was trenched, other 
portions sown without trenching, and all otherwise treated alike, viz., 
by covering over the seed in the drills with fully half an inch thick of 
sifted wood ashes. This season not one of the different plots escaped. 
The Carrots were all attacked about 2^ to 3^ inches below the 
surface, showing that the larvae did not like the caustic contained in 
the ashes, the upper part of the Carrots remaining perfectly sound. 
In this case it appears to me open to suggestion that the attack might 
be from larvae remaining in the ground, and that the preservation of 
the root for as deep down as the effect of the wood ashes reached 
points to the possibility of doing good by waterings of an alkaline 
nature, such as might be distasteful to the Grub, and contain 
constituents of the root. Analysis shows thirty-two parts in the 
hundred of potash and fourteen of soda in the constituents of the 
Carrot root, and the application of chemical manure, that would both 
press forward the Carrot growth and be deterrent to the Grub, in a 
form that would take itself well to the bottom of the root, might have 
an excellent effect. At Torloisk, in the Isle of Mull, Mr. Grierson 
mentions the Fly as being very destructive this season. The Carrot 
Fly appeared as usual in July at Dalkeith, and its ravages were about 
the usual amount. Mr. Service notes the garden crops of Carrots at 
