222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the ants make butter, and these lice are the ants' cows. I 

 was in the garden one day with my friend, watching these in- 

 sects, and lie told me that he had two or three acres of land 

 in the village where he lived, and one year he set out a lot of 

 cabbage plants. They grew famously for some time, but one 

 day he looked at them and saw that they were covered with 

 lice. The next day he looked at them again, and they were 

 evidently increasing with marvellous rapidity. " I thought,'' 

 said he, " that my cabbage plants were gone, and I felt so mad 

 that I took up a handful of dirt and slung it at those things. 

 It seemed to relieve my feelings, and I went through the whole 

 row, flinging the dirt upon the plants, and then went into the 

 house. The next morning I was out looking at them, and I 

 noticed that where I had slung the dirt they seemed to have 

 let up a little. That rather encouraged me, and I went 

 tlirough the whole piece in the same way. I got up every 

 morning for a week, and went out and sprinkled dirt on the 

 plants wlien the dew was on them, and I had a splendid lot 

 of cabbages. My neighbors asked me ' How in wonder did 

 you get those cabbages ? What have you been doing to kill 

 those fellows?'" Here we have the explanation of it. You 

 may take coal aslies, or plaster, or Scotch snuff, or any kind 

 of dust, and it will have the same effect. I have no doubt 

 Mr. Smith will tell you that the reason why these things de- 

 stroy the insects is, that the dust chokes them up. 



A neighbor of mine in the city, who had a Jarge garden, 

 which was the admiration of every body, employed a very skill- 

 ful gardener, who, in tlie spring, when his cabbage plants got 

 up to a certain height, would go through the rows and sprin- 

 kle plaster or ashes upon them, and his plants were not trou- 

 bled by the aphis. I presume mine would not be if I had 

 done the same thing, but I like to give the insects a fair 

 chance on my farm. 



Dr. Riggs. The cabbage raisers near me have a remedy 

 for the green worms that infest the cabbage plant ; it is salt. 

 One man had set out three-quarters of an acre with cabbage 

 plants which began to be infested by these green worms, and 

 he sprinkled a little fine salt on the head of each cabbage, or 



