STEM EELWORM. 
17 
The opposite figure is from a sketch taken by myself of the whole 
of a plant of Field Beans, stunted and deformed by presence of the 
Tylenchus devastatrix , the Stem Eel worm (well known as the cause of 
“ Tulip-root ” in Oats, and “Stem-sickness” in Clover), so that the 
whole plant was only about ten inches high by five inches wide. 
Up to this observation of 1890 of the deformed growth of the 
Bean plants in the field from which the specimens sent me were taken, 
there has been (as far as I am aware) no record of this attack being 
found to affect the Field Bean, that is to say, no record of the Stem 
Eelworm, the T. devastatrix , being found, on skilled examination, to be 
present in the stunted and deformed Bean plants. 
In 1886, information was sent me by Mr. Drennan, of Goatfoot 
Farm, Galston, Ayrshire, that for several years he had sowed Beans as 
part of the green crop, and had found Tulip-root to be much worse 
on *the plot where the Beans were, so he gave up sowing them, and, 
although the land had gone through a course of cropping, the Beaned 
plots were still worse than the other portions of the field. 
Mr. Drennan forwarded me some stumps of Bean plants from 
land where Tulip-root had been bad in the previous year, and these 
I examined carefully for presence of Tulip-root Eelworms, but could 
find none. This, however, was easily accounted for, as the plants had 
been manured with a mixture containing sulphate of potash, which 
we have since found to be an excellent preventive or remedy of the 
Stem Eelworm. 
In the same year—in the report of the condition of the Oat crops 
at the Highland and Agricultural Society’s Experimental Station at 
Pumplierston—it was noted that the crop that season was Oats after 
Beans, and, in common with many fields under Oats, had suffered 
considerably, and Tulip-root was somewhat prevalent. Here, however, 
excessive drought was considered to be doing mischief. 
In 1887, Mr. Drennan again forwarded me Beans and Oat plants 
from a locality which had suffered seriously from Tulip-root “ for a 
number of years,” and on examination, at my request, Dr. Ritzema 
Bos found the Tylenchus in the Oats, but none in the Beans. 
No further notes were sent me on this special point until the 8tli 
of August of the past season (1890), when Mr. J. R. Eve, Estate 
Agent, &c., of Luton and Hitcliin, wrote me that on the previous day 
he had seen a case which he wished to report for consideration. He 
mentioned :—“ I was valuing crops in this county, and on reaching a 
piece of Beans noticed a very marked difference, and that a portion of 
the crop had been more than half destroyed. The bailiff told me the 
Beans had been failing since before the time they came into flower, 
and that the destruction had been going on ever since. But the 
remarkable part is this, shown in the sketch accompanying this letter, 
