Dear Mr. Fletcher,—You ask about gas lime (as a top dressing for land). There is certainly need for caution in its use, but I do not think you would find a better short treatise on it than the little paper printed by the late Dr. [Augustus] Voelcker, of which I have had a copy taken for you (now enclosed with much pleasure), for I do not know where (or whether) it was published.[[70]] The kind old man sent me a copy when I wrote to him during his last illness, I not being aware how ill he was at the time. He had a great opinion of the lime, and I think it does immense good, but still, if too fresh or if too thickly applied, dire are the consequences. Even if the heaps are left standing a little while on the field, the chances are the spots will be poisoned. But I always use it in our garden. When we came here about twelve years ago it could be had as a gift, but when I wanted some a few weeks ago it cost about 7s. the cart load, and was only sold to me as a favour, there is such a run on it. One of the market gardeners said he could not do without it, and it is splendid for getting rid of the diseased growths in cabbage and turnip known as “Club-root” or “Finger and Toe.” But withal it does not do to trust the application to hands without heads. You will find reports (or rather notes in some of my different Reports) about quantities used.
I hope you will be able to come over, there are so many points it would be so pleasant to talk over, and Croydon is only a little way off by rail. It would give me great pleasure to make your sister’s acquaintance.
July 19, 1886.
Lately I had good specimens of a Hippobosca, H. Struthionis, Janson, which is doing harm in South Africa to Ostriches at an up-country station. It appears to be a very curious instance of the migration of a parasite, as M. Lichtenstein (if I remember right, or M. Offer) thinks it may have been caught so to say by the Ostriches from the Quagga. It is very interesting as a quadruped pest on a bird.
March 15, 1887.
I was so very much gratified to receive your kind letter this morning, that I will reply as soon as I possibly can. Your Entomological Society of Ontario is the one of all others that I desire to belong to. I shall think it a real honour, one made still more welcome by the kind and courteous manner in which you notify I am likely to be permitted to have such a distinction [honorary membership]. Your society seems to me a pattern, a thorough example of what a Society should be, so truly scientific, and using its knowledge for the general benefit. I shall be proud to be allowed to add its title to my titles—prouder still to have the approbation and cordial friendship of its President, and its late President.
You have encouraged and gratified me very much by what you kindly say about my Hessian fly pamphlet; very few of our English Entomologists care for subjects of practical bearing, and it has grown me many a grey hair,[[71]] to endeavour to “keep the bridge.” The “flax-seeds” are now being found near Errol in Scotland in the light grain or “shag,” or “chog,” as it is called, which is thrown down by a separate apparatus from the machine. Meantime I am trying to get a kind of cordon established for watch on the straw at such of our importing ports as I have influence near. We give the working men, through whose hands the straw daily passes, full instructions what they are to look for, where, and how, likewise a small gratuity, and a promise of a handsome bonus to the first who finds and produces specimens of infested imported straw. The working men can help enormously if they are kindly and properly dealt with, and I did not think sending an inspector would do much good. Hessian fly puparia would not have been “at home” on the day of his visit! Could you tell me whether straw is usually cut above the point of attachment of the puparia in Canada? This would make an enormous difference as to danger of infection.
Dr. Lindeman, Moscow, has given me a list of the Governments over which C. destructor has spread in Russia since its first appearance in 1879, and with his permission I am publishing it in my tenth Report (p. [104]). Would you care to have a packet of copies sent over? Of course I shall send copies immediately on publication for your and Professor Saunders’s kind acceptance, and to a few other of my Canadian friends; but if you will give me leave I should have real gratification in having a packet forwarded, and also begging acceptance of electros of any of my own figures which you thought might be acceptable to your Entomological Society.
Torrington House, St. Albans, England,
April 22, 1889.