166 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



natiii'al sciences, than which nothing 

 is more pure and satisfying for young 

 minds. There is much complaint of 

 the inclination of the young to leave 

 rural homes for town life. Nothing 

 would be more potent to arrest this 

 tendency, than to spend some money 

 and time in rendering the home attrac- 

 tive by the means that have been sug- 

 gested. Resolve to set out and properly 

 attend to a suitable selection of trees, 

 shrubs, and flowers. —E. A. Long, iVt 

 American Agriculturist. 



GIiOWlN(i CABBAGE. 



To persons who grow only a few cab- 

 bages for private use, there is but little 

 trouble in protecting the plants from 

 the ravages of the worst of all cabbage 

 pests — the maggot. 



Among the many market gardeners 

 around Detroit, v/ho annually grow from 

 five to twenty thousand eacli year, very 

 little, if anything, is done to destroy 

 them. So far as I knovv there is no 

 remedy against the fly itselt, or for the 

 prevention of the eggs being laid, which 

 is the time to destroy the insect. When 

 in charge of the garden at the Agricul- 

 tui'al College, I had set out about one. 

 hundred early cabbage plants, but was 

 told that they would be destroyed by 

 the maggoc. Pi'evious to that year, I 

 had grown a great many cabbage for 

 the Detroit market, ami had lost a great 

 many hundred plants every year by the 

 maggot. This caused me to examine 

 more closely the cause, and try such 

 z-emedies as I thought would destroy 

 the larvae. By close ob.servation for a 

 few years, I found that the fly wliicli 

 was the cause of the trouble, made its 

 appearance from tlie 10th to the 20th 

 of May — sometimes later, according to 

 lateness of the season — and tliat was 

 the time to a[)ply the remedies to des- 

 troy them. This I communicated to 

 Prof. Cook of the College, and on the 

 11 til of May of that year tht; professor 



made an examination of the ]ilants I 

 had set out, and found a few flies had 

 deposited their eggs, but no larvse at 

 that time developed enough to do any 

 serious damage. Prof Cook immedi- 

 ately furnished me with two remedies 

 to be used according to his directions. 

 I divided the row in three parts, using 

 his two remedies on two parts, and a 

 remedy of my own with which I had 

 saved five thousand plants a few years 

 l)efore. 



Bi-sulphuret of carbon, and sulphuric 

 acjd diluted with 12 parts of soft soap 

 and water, were used on two-thirds, on 

 the other third I used salt. All three 

 remedies proved of great value, for every 

 |)lant was saved and formed good heads. 

 The mode of using them was as follows : 

 Make a hole one inch deep one inch 

 from the plant, and })our in a quarter 

 of a teaspoonful of carbon, immediately 

 filling up the hole ; do the same with 

 the diluted a.cid, only using a spoonful. 

 Where salt was used I first scraped 

 away the earth from the stem to the 

 depth of half an inch, then dropped 

 around the stem a thimbleful of salt, 

 but did not cover. 



Now the real secret of success is to 

 know when and what to apply, and do 

 it in time, for after the larvie have 

 grown to an eighth of an inch in length, 

 and reach the roots, salt, c.ii'bon nor 

 acid will save them. I have tried lift- 

 ing aiul I'eplanting, but with poor suc- 

 cess, what plants were saved in that 

 way made poor, stunted heads. 



Where large quantities of early cab- 

 bage — for plants set out the middle of 

 June in this vicinity are not attacked 

 with the fly— are grown, most of thtun 

 might be saved by hoeing them twice, 

 first about the middle of May, the 

 second hoeing a week or ten days later, 

 each time drawing the earth from the 

 plant with the hoe, and be sure and 

 leave no earth adhering to the stem of 

 the plant above where the hoe has 



