June 5, 1893.
I thank you very much for your kind letter. If I were nearer it would be a great pleasure to me to be present on your prize day, when I might have the gratification of making personal acquaintance with many of those whom I know by name as taking much interest in this important school as well as yourself, whom I should much like to meet; and also our “Aldersey boys,” whom I have known and worked with, or they with me, for so many years.
It is a very great pleasure to me that they are continuing their attention, under your skilled help and guidance, to observation of farm pests, and their work stands first as a proof of what can be done in getting rid of one insect pest.
When careful search only produces twenty warble grubs, in a district[[58]] where a few years ago they were counted by hundreds, to my thinking we—that is, the boys, you and I—may fairly be proud of a thoroughly useful work. If I might venture on a kind of little moral reflection I should say that I should like the little prizes which I have so much pleasure in offering, to remind them sometimes of how much can be done, in many other things also, by even moderate attention given at the right time and under the guidance of sound knowledge. I trust they will continue their field work. With the increase of area under cultivation or occupied by stock so may their insect pests be expected to increase, and on sound knowledge of what really happens, and what at a paying rate can be brought to our aid, our hope rests of coping with the farmer’s enemies. What I can do to help them by advice, or by reply to inquiries, will be gladly at their service. Whilst I congratulate those who have won my little tokens of goodwill, and beg to offer the same for the next prize day, I must say to all that in the information and benefit they have laid up in their working and observations they have each gained a prize far better than anything I can offer them.
May 29, 1894.
It is with most sincere pleasure that I hear from you once again this year of the good success of the Aldersey boys in their studies and of their steadiness in work. The methods by which serviceable instruction on this subject, namely, Agricultural Entomology, can be given is often a matter of difficulty and doubt, and I certainly think that the plan you mention to me is so good, and meets the points of combining practical knowledge with so much scientific information as is requisite, so well that I shall gladly draw the attention of those who apply to me for suggestions on these subjects to its serviceableness. You mention arranging the observations of the boys who take up the study of crop and fruit pests on a system which, though so simply worked, really forms an excellently complete course. You say that one week the boys bring samples of infestation injurious to fruit; in a second week attacks on garden vegetables; in another week on field crops; in another on timber; in another living examples of the subjects figured in the insect diagrams which my sister and I have had the pleasure of contributing to your school collections, and in yet another week you receive notes of serviceable means of prevention and remedies. This plan appears to me so sound and good that I hope I may be forgiven for intruding a few minutes on your time in greatly desiring to draw the attention of the influential visitors who will be present at your meeting to how excellently this plan meets many difficulties. A boy so taught knows his facts.
June 2, 1895.
Many thanks for your letter received yesterday morning, which is very interesting indeed to me, and which I hope to reply to very soon, but now I am replying to your note accompanying the caterpillars from the Peckforton Hills, though not so fully as I could wish, for disasters befell the letter, and it arrived by special messenger from the Post Office, with the announcement that the things had got loose, and were creeping all about! Any way but little remained to judge by, so I report on what was visible. Most of the caterpillars were loopers (fig. [30]), and the largest proportion of these, though differing so much in colour, appeared to me to be the Cheimatobia brumata. As you know there may be every variety of shade in these Winter moth caterpillars, from pale green down to smoky brown or almost black. Another kind of which I only find two specimens (small and very small, respectively), look as if when grown they would be the Mottled Umber moth, which is so injurious this year. There are just single specimens of a few other non-looper kinds, but at this present time all the kinds come under only one method of (feasible) treatment, and I am afraid this (even if feasible) would be much too costly on such a great scale. Washing with Paris-green or London-purple, or with kerosene emulsion, would be the right thing, or our British form of the emulsion, made by Messrs. Morris, Little and Son, Doncaster, and sold, I believe, at a very low price (consequent on the large demand for it), under the trade name of “antipest.” This only needs diluting. But when we come to dealing with great areas like the Peckforton Woods, I believe that the only really practicable way of, in some degree, lessening the evil, and counteracting its effects, is throwing water from some large engine. If a fire engine and a supply of water were available this might do a great deal of good.
I was consulted by the late Sir Harry Verney about “an ancestral oak” at Clayden, which appeared nearly cleared of leafage, and I advised playing the house fire engine on it—and the plan succeeded. The moisture falling around the tree pushed on the second leafage and (conjecturally) saved the tree. But with woods it is most difficult to manage application. I am afraid I am only able to say what would be best, if it could be done.
For the future it is a grave consideration, and consultation is very desirable, as to what means could reasonably and safely be employed to destroy the caterpillar in the ground. They will probably be very soon leaving the trees, and burying themselves just below the surface, and will most likely reappear, in moth form, and ascend the trees, beginning in the early winter, and thus eggs will be laid to start next year’s attack. I do not know whether the ground growths would permit of anything like paring being done under the trees. The best way would be “sticky banding” in October. At the Toddington fruit grounds one year 120,000 trees were sticky banded, but still this is work on an enormous scale. These are the main points to work on, and I should be very much pleased to enter on any of them more in detail, but just now I am writing as soon as I can (before going to church), as with Sunday and Bank Holiday posts I am afraid this letter will not, at the earliest, reach you until Tuesday morning, so please excuse such hastily written lines.