48
THE BEAN BEETLE IN ESSEX.
THE BEAN BEETLE, BRUCHUS RUFIMANUS,
BOH., IN ESSEX.
By EDWARD A. FITCH, F.L.S., F.E.S., etc.
Any injury done by the much talked-about and written-about
Hessian-fly has been very trifling, compared with the destruction
caused by this small beetle, Bruchus rufimanus, Boh., in Essex during
the past year (1887). The complaints of "holey" or "bug-eaten"
beans come from all parts of the county, and are by no means con-
fined to the heavy bean-growing land; where beans have been grown
on our lighter soils they appear to have suffered equally with those
grown on heavy land, I have delivered winter beans, in other
years, weighing 19 stone 4 lbs. per sack (67 1/2 lbs. per bushel),
not an unusual weight; but this year none of mine have quite
weighed 18 stone (63 lbs. per bushel). I hear from corn mer-
chants that nothing over 18 stone per sack can be expected
this year—a year in which condition is exceptionally good, and
the beans should weigh well, the loss being entirely due to the
ravages of the Bruchus. Certainly more than half the beans I
grew (the.produce of 164 acres) contained a Bruchus, some of the
seeds two or more, and a greater money loss was occasioned from
the fact that all the wild oats (Avena fatua) growing among the
plants seem to have taken possession of the Bruchus-holes in the
beans, from which it was quite impracticable to dislodge them.
These oats spoilt the sample for sale, and were very annoying when
the beans came to be used, as grinding did not effectually destroy
them, and I shall be obliged to purchase fresh and cleaner bean
seed, if I can get it. My spring beans (Mazagans) were bad, but the
winter beans suffered immensely, and the same appears to be the
experience almost everywhere. Mazagans weighed only 15 stone,
7 lbs. per sack, against an average of 17 stone, or more. Taking my
own loss at 2s. per quarter, represented by loss of weight alone, it
amounts to £65 12s. on my 164 acres, at 4 quarters per acre.
Both "Kirby and Spence," and Curtis appear to treat of Bruchus
attacks on beans and peas as being more serious to imported corn
than to native grown crops, but this certainly is not the case now.
The Rev. Leonard Jenyns (now Blomefield) in his "Observations in
Natural History," records (page 244) that in 1826 more than half the
crop of beans in the neighbourhood of Upwell, on the borders of
Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, was destroyed by the Bruchus, and
also states on the authority of Mr. Walton ("Annals and Mag. of