MILLEPEDES. 
47 
also manure from cart-stable. The land is a good deep loam on chalk, 
ploughed after Mangold-crop lifted, and deeply ploughed, left in fallow 
all winter, and had no farm-yard manure this year. 
Specimens of the artificial manures used were forwarded, and on 
examination appeared quite clean from attack.* 
In experiment with the specimens of Julus worms sent I found 
that salt and water destroyed them in a very short time ; and the 
following note from Mr. Pain’s bailiff shows (what is of considerable 
interest) that the salt must be diluted to do any good in killing the 
pests. The communication was as follows :— 
“ After receipt of your letter I went to the field when raining 
(pouring), and got about two pounds of the soil with the insects in, 
and added a tablespoonful of salt to one pound and the same quantity 
of nitrate of soda to the other pound : in two hours time the insects were 
still alive. I afterwards added a little water, and they were all dead in 
both cases in five minutes (just as Miss Ormerod said), but previous 
to my adding the water there was sufficient moisture in the soil to 
dissolve both the salt and nitrate of soda. Therefore, I think a brine 
of salt and water would be more effective, and put on with as little 
labour as dibbling the salt up the drills. 
“ I feel almost convinced their origin must be in the manure, as 
we find them in bunches now and then round a bit of bone or refuse 
used in the manufacture of the manure ; still they have a great liking 
for the Wurzel, as I have proved to-day. Upon searching I found the 
most of them deeper in the soil than I found them on Tuesday; I 
concluded this was owing to the rain, but I soon discovered it was in 
search of food. 
“ Before drilling the seed I soaked half of it for forty-eight hours, 
and, when sufficiently dry, mixed it with the unsoaked seed, and 
drilled together. The soaked seed germinated in five or six days, and 
furnished food for these insects [Millepedes, Ed.] close to the surface ; 
this they have 'devoured, and now they have attacked the unsoaked 
seed just germinating, as we find a bunch of from five to twenty round 
every seed. This accounts for their being deeper in the soil in this 
instance.” 
On the 25th of June, Mr. Edm. Riley, of Kipling Cote, Market 
Weighton, noticed something gone wrong with about an acre of 
Mangolds in the corner of a fifty-acre field ; this piece in the field, 
which was Barley the year before, had then been remarked as not 
doing well, a good deal of it having died away, as if from Wireworm- 
attack. “ In this case, from the condition of the specimens, I could 
* It was, however, somewhat singular that the young sprouting Scarlet-runner 
Beans, to which I applied this manure in my garden, failed almost entirely, though 
I could not detect Millepedes among them. 
