8 
of 15s. per acre, would amount to £503,952 ; at 20s. 
per acre, which would often be much nearer, and 
even this would sometimes be too low, it would, of 
course, be the same in pounds as the number of 
acres—£671,936. That is, a definite and clearly 
calculable sum of more than half a million wasted 
by this pest. This is a total and clearly demon¬ 
strable loss ; an extra outlay to raise a crop which 
should have grown without this second commence¬ 
ment, and there are further details of loss turning 
on lesser value of the later sown crop, and agricul¬ 
tural points such as scarcity of food for cattle, and 
consequent derangement of farm details, which 
would be out of place for me to speak on here, but 
which have made the attack of turnip fly of 1881 
nothing less than a national visitation, and one 
which we may thank our leading agriculturists for 
coming forward to show those less informed than 
themselves that there are means in the ordinary 
course of good cultivation of in some degree guard¬ 
ing against and supporting the crop “ past ” by 
previous preparation. I should like to add a very 
few words more on the powers of destruction of 
some of our common farm pests as shown in the 
returns sent me of loss in 1881. The bean aphis 
destroyed on a field at Maldon, Essex, at the rate 
of not less than four bushels, or a money loss of 
about £1 per acre. The beet fly at a locality in 
Cumberland caused a loss per acre of from two to 
ten tons. The daddy long legs grub caused loss at 
Baldock, Herts, of quite £100 on forty acres of 
wheat. The sitones, or pea weevils, whose work 
we know so well in our gardens by the semi-circular 
scoops eaten out of the young leaves, injured, near 
Stevenage, at the rate of at least £40, on twenty, 
acres of peas. The maggot of a two winged fly, a 
species of oscinis of which the life history as yet is 
not fully worked out, destroyed at the rate of 
fifteen bushels per acre on about fifty acres of 
wheat, near Tewkesbury, by feeding within the 
young plant. These are only just a few of the 
notes of the ravages constantly going on year by 
year, and which call for attention. We have our 
natural history and our entomological societies 
throughout the country, and we publish “ Tran¬ 
sactions” and “Proceedings” of more or less 
use, but we record more than we are aware of. 
The injurious insects have associations also, and 
we publish their results for them ; may I so far 
play on the words as to call them their “ Tran¬ 
sactions ” their “Proceedings,” and where do 
we find them ? We find them recorded on the 
