4 CABBAGE. [1899 



The Green-veined White (P. 7wpi) is said by Dr. Taschenberg to 

 be the least frequently met with of the three kinds of butterflies, but 

 still to be always quite common enough. 



Where a numerous visitation of these Cabbage pests is present in 

 garden or field, it is difficult to distinguish the butterflies excepting by 

 size, the Large White (see p. 1) being considerably larger than the 

 other two kinds. The caterpillars, however, may be distinguished 

 from each other by the few chief characteristics mentioned above ; and 

 full description of the three species in their early stages from egg to 

 chrysalis will be found at pp. 148-159 of the work referred to (ante) 

 at p. 2. 



Prevention and Remedies. — In the course of the infestations of 

 the past two seasons I have tried two preventive experiments on the 

 Cabbage beds in my own garden, the first of which (in 1898) so totally 

 failed that it may perhaps save waste of time to others just to mention 

 it. At my desire my gardener dressed the plants with a good mixture 

 of lime and soot, well powdered and thrown on the leaves. This did 

 not appear to do the least good. The leaves were eaten back until 

 little or nothing remained but the mid-rib and the side veins standing 

 or hanging like strings, and of the plants which recovered so as to 

 make something like growth, the result was really hardly worth 

 cooking. 



In the past season I was much more successful. Not long after 

 the White Butterflies appeared as a regular infestation my gardener 

 syringed various kinds of the Cabbage plants in the difierent beds with 

 the mixture known as Little's Antipest. This is a mixture of soft soap 

 and mineral oil, so far as I am acquainted with its chief ingredients ; 

 in fact, may be described as our British counterpart of the " kerosine 

 emulsion " which is so greatly and successfully used in the United 

 States and Canada for destruction of caterpillars, as a spray on leafage. 

 Shortly after the syringing there were noticeably fewer White Butter- 

 flies in the kitchen garden than in the flower garden adjoining, and 

 the result was such a much smaller appearance of caterpillars that, 

 though two beds were a good deal injured, the other two borders and 

 some lines of luxuriant Cauliflower plants were practically little 

 harmed, and even the two first-mentioned were in fairly good order ; 

 whilst in various other gardens in the neighbourhood the condition of 

 the attacked plants was stated to be nearly or quite as bad as in 1898. 

 From this success (although only on the scale of experiment in my 

 own garden) it seems to me that the plan would be at least worth 

 trying for garden use. 



For those who may care to try the kerosine emulsion itself, I give 

 below one of the U.S.A. Dept. of Agriculture recipes for proportion of 



