94 THE NEW ONION CULTURE 



eat ravenously and continue to grow until they finish 

 feeding, sometime before the middle of June. They 

 are then about an inch and a quarter in length, and 

 are marked upon the sides by a decided dark band or 

 stripe. They now burrow into the ground a short 

 distance and form small cavities in which they change, 

 first to dark brown chrysalids, and then into moths. 

 The moths may emerge at any time between the 

 last of July and October, and they soon begin to lay 

 their eggs." 



The following treatment is recommended for 

 severe visitations of this enemy. Mix thirty pounds 

 of dry bran and middlings in equal parts, with one 

 pound of Paris green. *'This mixture can be dis- 

 tributed by means of an onion seed drill, and thus 

 deposited evenly and continuously about the margins 

 of the fields before the advancing destroyers. It forms 

 a line of defense across which the worms will seldom 

 pass without feasting to their death. If the worms 

 become scattered over the fields, the dry bait can be 

 applied quickly and uniformly alongside the rows by 

 use of the drill. 



"This treatment is fully as efficient as hand pick- 

 ing, is less expensive, and is, for onions, at least, a 

 very satisfactory defense against the cutworms. It 

 can also be used successfully and with ease to protect 

 cabbages, tomatoes, egg plants, sweet potatoes, straw- 

 berries and similar garden plants, by surrounding each, 

 at time of transplanting, with a little of the poisoned 

 mixture. 



'Tf the onion grower will have ready for the cut- 

 worms when they first appear upon the grass about 

 his fields a meal of the tempting but deadly, poisoned 

 dry bait, and will off^er this food to them whenever 

 and wherever they appear among the onions, his loss 

 from their ravages will be but small." 



