MANGOLDS. 
Mangold or Beet Fly. Anthomyia ( Clwrtophilo) beta, Curtis. 
A. beta (female), mag.; line showing spread of wings, nat. size; pupa, nat. size 
and magnified. Eggs (after Farsky), mag. 
During the past season Mangold-leaf maggot lias, as usual, been 
doing mischief. This, as for the most part is well known, is a small 
whitish, legless maggot, which feeds between the upper and under 
sides of the leaf. Thus blister-like patches are formed where the 
substance of the leaf has been destroyed, and, according to whether 
these are few or many, so is the amount of injury done. Sometimes 
(especially when the crop is attacked when young) the greater part of 
the leafage is destroyed. 
The maggots feed for about a month in the leaves, and then turn 
to chrysalids (usually in the ground to which the maggots have fallen 
from the leafage above). From these chrysalids the greyish flies soon 
appear, so that there may be a succession of broods during the summer, 
and the damage through injury to the Mangold or Beet leaves is at 
times very great. 
The history of this attack, and such measures of prevention and 
remedy as have appeared serviceable up to date, have been so often 
given that it is unnecessary to repeat them ; but the great difficulty 
has been to gain knowledge of some kind of dressing that it was 
possible to apply, and which might be depended on as a beneficial 
application to the crop when badly injured. 
Notes have been given of good effect from applications of guano, 
also of soot, and of mineral superphosphate, the effect of the super¬ 
phosphate in this set of parallel experiments being the best. 
But the most markedly good results were given by nitrate of soda, 
sown between the rows just before showers, which answered excellently 
in bringing Mangolds, of which the leafage had been almost destroyed 
by the maggot attack, well round, and giving a good crop of roots. 
