2 E. A. ORMEROD-PRETENTION OF INSECT-INJURY. 
In considering the question of insect-attacks on our food-crops, 
and to a certain extent on our fruit, it is of some importance to 
remember that we are very often, if not for the most part, dealing 
with plants that are in some way or other in an abnormal state— 
in an unnatural condition as regards their own vegetable develop¬ 
ment ; or the numbers in which they are grown together ; or the 
soil they grow in. The object of cultivation is frequently to 
produce an increased development of some particular part, as for 
instance the enlarged succulent mass which forms the so-called 
bulb of the turnip, and the mass of close-pressed leafage of the 
“ hearted ” cabbage. A greater amount of fruit-cultivation also 
produces the aggregation of one kind of plant unnaturally over 
many acres, sometimes (as may be seen especially in the cultiva¬ 
tion of cabbage in what is known as “garden-farming”) without 
due rotation of crops. 
With an increase of population it is necessary to increase our 
vegetable supplies, hut the great increase of the insect-pests from 
the unavoidable massing together of food-plants which in their 
natural state would he thinly scattered amongst other kinds, either 
not infested by the same insects or deterrent to them, is one special 
point. Where there are only a few plants together of a kind, 
whether they are killed or not by the insect-attack, the attack 
itself either dies out for want of food, or is not propagated to any 
great extent, but where a space of many acres is covered by one 
crop, if any insect-pest that produces many generations in one 
season once gets hold, it has everything at hand for continuance. 
Before entering on these points a little in detail, it may he of 
interest to quote the account given in Holinshed’s 1 Chronicles,’ of 
the variation in the amount of vegetables cultivated in this country 
which was observable in a general view of a period of about three 
hundred years before the date of 1586. The extract is given from 
the Chapter entitled “ Of Gardens and Orchards” in the 1st volume 
of the ‘ Chronicles.’ 
“ Such herbs, fruits, and roots also as grow yearly out of the 
ground, of seed, have been very plentiful in this land, in the time of 
the first Edward and after his days: but in process of time they 
grew also to be neglected, so that from Henry the Fourth till the 
latter end of Henry the Seventh, and beginning of Henry the 
Eighth, there was little or no use of them in England, but they 
remained either unknown, or supposed as food more meet for hogs 
and savage beasts to feed upon than mankind. Whereas in my 
time their use is not only resumed among the poor commons, I 
mean of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers, skirrets, parsneps, 
carrots, cabbages, navews, turnips, and all kind of salad-herbs, but 
also fed on as dainty dishes,” etc. 
In our own days the quantity of food-crops is enormously in¬ 
creased ; and as a matter of course there is an increase of the 
insect-feeders on these crops, hut the amount of this increase 
depends on many circumstances or coincidences. Begarding some 
of these we have gained solid practical knowledge—long-continued 
