SURFACE CATERPILLARS. 
79 
of Turnips, and also Swedes in another field on the opposite side of 
the farm. As many as five to seven caterpillars were to be found at 
one root. Mr. Crossman remarked :— 
“ The crops that are attacked were sown on the ridge, and manured 
with farm-yard manure and vitriolised bones; but, owing to the 
extreme dryness, the manure has not amalgamated with the soil in the 
least. I imagine the grub has hatched from eggs deposited in the 
manure, either since it was ploughed in, or in the heaps before. 
“ My Mangolds, which were sown on the flat without farm-yard 
manure, are quite free from the grub. To try whether lime will kill 
them, I threw a dozen on to some fresh-slaked lime, into which they 
burrowed, and the next day were mostly dead, though one appeared 
not in the slightest degree the worse.” 
Mr. Crossman further noted that he found the grubs mostly in land 
dressed with stale and inferior manure. His Cabbage crop was quite 
free from them, though it was heavily manured from the farm-yard, 
but with the addition of lime. 
[Mr. Crossman conjectures from this that the eggs may have been 
laid in the previous summer in the manure-heaps, and it is impossible 
to say whether or no this was the case. Where neglected manure- 
heaps are left (as I have seen some, not very long ago], running to 
lengths of ninety yards, and left by the lane-side until they were 
smothered in weeds, it is impossible to say but that caterpillars and 
chrysalids, of endless kinds, may be carried in the stale manure on to 
the field. —Ed.] 
On Sept. 15th, Mr. J. D. Slierston forwarded specimens of the 
Turnip caterpillar (A. segetum ) from Evercreech, Somerset, with the 
note:— 
“I have a five-acre field in which the grujb I send you herewith 
abounds. It was broken up from Sainfoin and seeds six years old last 
year. We had a crop of Swedes, very fine, except in patches, which 
went off after' the plant had grown for a month or more. Oats 
followed, and that went off similarly. The land is worked down to 
plant Trifolium , but this grub abounds so that it is obviously useless 
to plant anything. 
“We applied nitrate of soda to a part of the Oat crop last spring, 
and there the grub equally abounds; and on one part where lime 
happened to be applied very thickly the grub was there equally.” 
A letter from Mr. Slierston, on Sept. 17tli, mentioned, relatively 
to remedies suggested, “ My man tells me the pigs seem to be very 
busy after them.” 
On Sept. 26th, Mr. Cecil Hooper forwarded some caterpillars of 
the above kind (Agrotis segetum) from Claverley, Bridgnorth, as speci¬ 
mens of what were then doing much harm to young Turnips. The 
