A Prophetic Curse
A scientific farmer—at Rothamsted, that factory of ingenious ideas—has been paying special attention to the prognostics of that beautiful wild bush, the spindle. It is one of the hosts of that most offensive black-fly that attacks, especially, our broad beans. For myself I was forced, to my great disappointment, to destroy a bush, most carefully transplanted to the garden, because it became foul with the enemy. The new theory is that, by careful inspection of such a host-bush, we should be able to foretell whether the coming season is likely to be favourable to a particular crop. The school of phenologists (of whom little has been heard of late) have made not unsimilar suggestions. They advise, for example, the watching of the blackthorn, whose flowering should synchronise with the sowing of barley! But I doubt whether the value of any such timing has been demonstrated. The black-fly sound as if they might be more prac- tical prophets.
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