10 
once Fty attack is established, every circumstance that 
is bad for the Turnip helps to keep it under the 
power of the enemy. Frosts that check the growth of 
the young plant, or cold rain, or cold drought, will all 
keep it back, and thus, although the Fly will not be 
multiplying and spreading so rapidly as in hot and 
bright weather, yet what there is of it on the crop will 
need food, and the plants suffering from ungenial weather 
will not be able to grow past attack. 
This was shown last year in the report from Dumfries, 
in which county, and the neighbouring one of Kirkcud¬ 
bright, scarcely one field of Turnips escaped attack, and 
many had to be sown a third and even a fourth time. 
It is said, “We had during three weeks in May an 
unusually high temperature with very clear sunny days. 
This gave the beetle a start, and the cold weather of 
June and July never checked it. If the Turnip had 
been growing in June and July as they do in an ordinary 
season, they would have grown out of harm’s way ; as it 
was, the beetles overpowered them, eating them off the 
face of the earth.” (R. S. in Inj. Insect Keport, 1881.) 
At Marchmont, Berwickshire, drought, accompanied 
by late frost, kept the Turnips under the power of the 
Fly. From the ‘21st of May to the 10th of June, no 
rain fell, and high day temperatures during a part of 
the time were followed by a drop of the Minimum 
Thermometer to below freezing-point on five mornings 
after the 3rd of June, the temperature on the 10th being 
as low as 23°—that is, nine degrees of frost. “ Young 
Turnips were weak where they were not killed, and 
easily fell a prey to the vast numbers of Fly.” (P. L. 
in Inj. Insect Report, 1881.) 
A slow weak germination and growth through the 
stage whilst the plant is in its seed-leaves, is the great 
thing to be guarded against to save the young crop 
from the Fly. The trouble may be caused, as we have 
seen, by heat, or cold, or drought, but it may also arise 
from the land being ill-prepared or under-manured, from 
the surface being too dry at sowing time, from bad seed, 
