Seo. 12.] ENTOMOLOGICAL. 235 



the insects that consume your crops. Give, we pray you, good attention to 

 what we have already said and shall say in this section. You can not fail 

 to find something that will repay you well. You certainly will find valuahle 

 information in the following paragraph, written by A. S. llall, of Maiden, 

 Mass., in May, 18G0 : 



257. Salt for the Onion Maggot.— Much has been said and written about 

 the onion maggot, and I don't know that there is any cure for him ; but I 

 will tell you how 1 treated mine last year, and with good success for once, 

 and shall try it again this year, and will tell it to you and the farmers free 

 of charge, for I don't think I could get " $G0,000" for it if I should ask it. 



I sowed lust year in my garden, on good soil, three rows, about thirty feet 

 long each, to ouion seeds. I expected the maggots, and watched diligently 

 their jirogress. When they were first up about one or two inches liigh, I 

 put some strong salt and water on about three feet of one row, to see if it 

 would kill the onions, and; in case it did not, perhaps it might kill the mag- 

 gots, if they came. The young onions stood it well, and it did not hurt 

 them. 



After the onions had got about as large as a pail-bail wire, there came 

 a spell of warm, wet weather, and my onions began to be afl'ected. I 

 watched them several days, and they grew worse, and were fast dying out, 

 for about one in every eight or ten were wilting and dying, and I found a 

 maggot at the roots of every one that appeared wilting, and sometimes the 

 maggot was nearly as large as the little stock itself, and had eaten the bot- 

 tom all away, and was making its way up the stem ; at the rate of havoc 

 they were making, it appeared there would not be one onion left in the bed 

 at the end of four weeks more. I took a pailful of strong pickle from my 

 ])ork-barrel, and, with a watering-pot, jiut it all on to the three rows, as 

 tJiough I were watering them ; the onions never faltered or changed. The 

 salt killed all the grass, young clover, and weeds, except purslane, which 

 came up later, and the maggots were entirely killed, and I never saw any 

 after, though the flies continued to lay their eggs down the side of the little 

 plant, and between it and the dirt, just as flics will blow a piece of fresh 

 meat; but the salt prevented their maturing or hatching, and I raised a 

 good crop of fair-sized onions. I think they did not ripen as well as usual, 

 but I am not convinced that the salt prevented them, for I have often seen 

 patches remain as green as mine were at harvest-time. 



I put on two or three slighter sprinklings of brine after the first, during 

 the summer. 



•2i)S. Essay on the Cut-Worm.— -^sa*:? Itfore the Chicago Gardeners Sod- 

 ctij, August «//(, 1860, by Jno. Pekiam.— I acknowledge my inability to do 

 justice to this subject, from not having given it my attention, except in a 

 general way. It is, nevertheless, one which interests agriculturists, and par- 

 ticularly horticulturist.*, as much, ]icrhaps, as any other entomological sub- 

 ject with which they have to do. The farmers, working on a more extended 

 scale, using larger fields, and planting fewer varieties of hoed crops, do not 



