113 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Having: taken sonic pains to find out what, and liow many vegetables are 

 used in Lansing, I lind the hirger part are sent in from otlier places. I am 

 well satisfied that by having a constant supply of vegetables put up in good 

 shape and delivered fresh in town every day, we may increase our garden to a 

 large extent, furnish profitable labor to the increasing numljer of students, and 

 allord valuable practical instruction in the growing of vegetables. 



As we shall have a sufficient extent of suitable land for this purpose the 

 coming year, we only need a market wagon for delivering stuff, and a suitable 

 building for storing vegetables, with a cellar to keep ai)plcs, potatoes, squashes, 

 &c., into the winter and spring months, when tliey can be marketed with 

 greater profit. 



INJURIOUS INSECTS. 



Insects injurious to plants were numerous as usual, and destroyed all our 

 earliest radishes and cabbages. The small striped cucumber beetle attacked our 

 melons, cucumbers and squashes in swarms, but light sprinklings of air slaked 

 lime on the vines, and gas lime scattered around the hills seemed to keep them 

 o2 so that little damage was done. Our cabbages were infested early in the 

 season with the latest and worst scourge of the garden — the larvre of the cab- 

 bage butterfly. I commenced at once trying all the remedies I could hear of, 

 applications of carbolic acid, ammonia, fine middlings, salt, cayenne pepper, 

 tar water, and several other things, proved almost worthless, but a suds made 

 of whale oil soap and soft water applied as often as the ravages of the larvse 

 began to show, was quite effectual. We also tried planting a patch of cabbage 

 at a distance from where they had been grown before, thinking that possibly 

 they would not be found. At first it seemed a success, but by the latter part 

 of July the butterflies were swarming over tlie patch. An occasional sprinkling 

 of the whale oil soap suds was an effectual remedy, and but few of the cabbage 

 heads show the marks of the larva\ 



I found tlie best method of api)lication was to place a barrel of water in the 

 field and add two pounds of the soap, it would dissolve and be ready for use after 

 a day or two. The longer it stands the more disagreeable it smells, and its 

 effect on the worms more ra})id. We applied it with a common watering can, 

 with a fine nose, just enougli to wet over the surface of the leaves. It can not 

 be detected eitlier by taste or smell if the suds is not applied for a week or ten 

 days before the cabbages are harvested. From other experiments made at tiie 

 College this year, and from what I have heard of its use at other places, I think 

 this soap will prove to be one of the best insecticides known. AVe shall experi- 

 ment very thorouiihlv with it next season. 



Our melons, planted on the poorest of soil, yielded abundantly. The 

 method of cultivation was as follows : 



After the land was plowed and harrowed, two or three shovelsful of old 

 rotten compost were thrown down wliere each iiill was to be, and thoroughly 

 forked in over a surface three or four feet square. Eight or ten seeds were 

 then drop[)cd at the center of the i)lace forked over, and covered with half an 

 inch of fine soil, the ground being left level. A small box without top or bot- 

 tom, eight inches square on tlie bottom, eight inches deep, with the sides flar- 

 ing out so as to be ten inches square on top, was ])laced over the seeds ; dirt 

 Avas then drawn up around tlie box with a hoe and packed down firm, four 

 inches high ; the box was then carefully lifted out and carried to the next hill, 

 and the operation repeated. This leaves a bank of earth around each hill, and 



