February 1, 1919 



HORTICULTURE 



111 



THE ONION FLY. 

 The Onion fly is rather smaller 

 than the ordinary house fly, which it 

 very much resembles. It hatches 

 about the first week in May from a 

 chrysalis which has remained in the 

 ground all the winter, and commences 

 laying its eggs on the onion plant 

 about a week later. The eggs require 

 a little moisture to assist hatching, 

 consequently when deposited during 

 dry weather they remain dormant un- 

 til the first wet day, when they 

 quickly hatch and the gTubs begin to 

 eat their way into the tiny bulb. The 

 fly cannot survive frost, and if frost 

 or very cold weather occurs just after 

 the grubs are hatched many are 

 destroyed before they have time to do 

 any damage. This is the reason why 

 the pest is not so troublesome in some 

 seasons as in others. The fly is 

 guided to the onion by the sense of 

 smell, and an unhealthy plant or one 

 that has been attacked by wire-worm 

 or other ground insect always seems 

 to be the first attacked. It is by 

 obliterating the smell of the onion 

 that such things as soot or paraffin 

 are useful. After the grubs are fully 

 grown, which takes two or three 

 weeks, they leave the onion and bury 

 themselves in the gTound at a depth 

 varying according to the condition of 

 the soil, but seldom more than 6 

 inches. Before the grubs leave the 

 onion they may be killed by paraffin 

 emulsion at a strength of one in ten; 

 this specific will not harm the onions, 

 but will kill the grub if it reaches 

 them in less than an hour. In pre- 

 paring soil for an onion bed it is a 

 good plan to trench it two spits deep 

 and very carefully bury the top spit, 

 in which most of the chrysalids har- 

 bor, for as the fly emerges directly 

 from the chrysalis it cannot emerge 

 through, say, 12 inches of soil, and so 

 it perishes. Directly the first files 

 make their appearance efforts should 

 be made to poison them. Their ordin- 

 ary food is pollen and decaying 

 vegetable refuse, but they are very 

 fond of anything sweet, and can be 

 easily poisoned by placing ordinary 

 fly-papers soaked in sweetened water 

 in saucers between the rows of 

 onions during fine weather. They can 

 also be caught on ordinary sticky fly- 

 papers stretched between the rows. 

 By poisoning or catching the first 

 few flies, more can be done to pre- 

 vent the ravages of the grubs than 

 all the deterrents put together. 

 Without doubt the best way for any- 

 one who cannot succeed is to refrain 

 from growing onions for one year, as 

 the pest would then die out, and 

 although flies do migrate to some ex- 

 tent, there would be insufficient to 



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destroy a crop grown, say, one hun- 

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SEED TRADE NOTES. 

 Howard M. Karl, who is now with 

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NEW CORPORATIONS. 



Pittsfield, Mass.— The Flower Shop, 

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Memphis, Tenn. — Johnson Bros. 

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A new seed store has been opened 

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H. Pare, formerly with Dupuy & 

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