20 
addition to push on first growth, it is possible to give too 
much, and cause the after growth to be over-stimulated 
rather than sound and healthy. 
When the plant has fairly sprouted and attack takes 
place, the methods of remedy or mitigation lie in means 
of catching the Fly and destroying it wholesale; of 
applications (mechanical and otherwise) by which the 
Fly may be disturbed from its destructive work and 
destroyed, and repellent dressings. 
The plan of running tarred boards over the plants has 
been found to work well, by reason of the Flea-beetle taking 
its customary leaps to avoid the enemy, and consequently 
becoming attached to the tar. In the plans of driving 
sheep, dusting, dressing, &c., one great point is to secure 
that the Flea-beetle can not take its customary leaps , and 
thus escape us; therefore we see the reason of making 
these applications (as advised on all hands) late in the 
summer evening, or early in the morning, or after a light 
rain, when the leaping legs of the Flea-beetles are clogged, 
and thus they are at our mercy. They may be brushed or 
trampled into the earth or mixed up with the dressing, 
and if we do not kill all we stop the progress of their work 
for a time, and even if this time is only a couple of days 
it is a great relief to an infested crop in the seed-leaves. 
Applications of dilute soft-soap, which are serviceable 
in garden cultivation, act by clogging the Fly and 
making the food distasteful, and possibly in other ways 
besides direct action as plant stimulants. 
I have now detained you almost too long, but yet I 
wish to add a few words. 
We all know the importance of this crop and our 
great losses in it last year. On only half the acreage in 
Swedes and Turnips of the 83 English and Scotch 
Counties, from which I had returns in .1881, this was 
estimated at more than half a million of directly calcu¬ 
lable loss on seed and outlay alone for one resowing. A 
waste, utterly ^remunerative outlay, as it was to gain a 
crop, that, but for the “ Fly ” we should have had 
without it, and a sum also not nearly covering the real 
