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IN SCOTLAND.

403

ing, and after a night intervening, to roll with it a secondtime. It perfectly stopped the progress of the grub, and eventhe part attacked produced a heavy crop, but not so forwardas the rest. The first morning the whole surface was cover-ed with grubs, but on the second application very few wereobserved # .

Wooden-rollers are of little or no advantage for this pur-pose, unless loaded with stones in a box made for holdingthem. The weight of the stone-roller is too great for its dia-meter ; and when applied to rough land, it is too heavy towork, unless great force be applied ; so that metal rollers arethe best. The chief bar to their general use is the price,(L .20), which ordinary farmers cannot afford, unless severalwere to join together, to purchase one for their common be-nefit : care must also be taken to prevent their breakage.

The use of lime to destroy grubs has been recommended ;but the coats of insects, when in the grub state, are bard, dry,and as tough as leather, and calcareous matter is only destruc-tive to insects, in its hot or caustic state; a quality of which itis soon deprived by exposure to the atmosphere.

It has been ascertained by experiment, how far lime willoperate in the destruction of grubs. A gardener, whose cropsof peas were injured by them, brought some lime from the kiln,and getting up before day-break, had a quantity immediatelyslackened, and carried in a wheel-barrow to the place wherehe had sown his early peas. As soon as the day dawned, toallow him to see how matters stood, he put some of the hotlime into a sieve, and going to the windward side of the peas,he gently shook the sieve. The hot caustic powder instantlypervaded the surface of the ground to leeward. In this man-ner he went along the whole windward side of the plot. He ob-served, that a single particle of lime did not kill a slug, for theinsect had the faculty of throwing off a slimy slough, and dis-engaging itself from the particle, but if, in the progress to its

Caithness Report, p. 263-5,

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