114 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:3— Mar., 1920 



begin early so as to catch the first broods of the worms and may be 

 continued a long time as a cabbage grows from within outward 

 and there is no danger of the poison being enclosed within the head. 

 Another and perhaps simpler method of control for the home 

 garden is by dusting the cabbages with powdered arsenate of lead, 

 one part by weight to four parts of air-slaked lime. A cheese- 

 cloth bag is convenient as a duster. The material should be 

 applied preferably when the dew is on so that it will stick to the 

 leaves. 



Cabbage Maggot 



The Cabbage Maggot: The parent of this pest is a very small fly, 

 so much smaller than the house fly that one would never suspect 

 that it could do so much mischief; it deposits its white eggs in 

 crevices of the soil near the base of the cabbage plants. Here 

 they hatch and the small white maggots burrow into the roots or 

 tunnel along the surfaces of the roots. The maggots completely 

 destroy the root systems of young plants, check their growth, and 

 cause them to wilt and die. The maggots are also very injurious 

 to young plants in the seed bed. 



For great fields of cabbage the most effective method of control 

 is by surrounding the stem of each plant as soon as it is set by a 

 hexagonal disk of tarred paper which may be bought of dealers 

 at two or three dollars per thousand. But for the home garden 

 the following method is advised : Make a slight depression about 

 the stem of each plant and pour into it a tablespoonful of crude 

 carbolic acid emulsion made as follows: hard soap, i pound or 

 soft soap I quart; boiling water, i gallon; crude carbolic acid, i 

 pint. 



The soap should be dissolved in the water and the carbolic 

 acid added. Then the mixture should be churned rapidly until 

 a creamy white emulsion is formed. This should then be diluted 

 by adding 30 times its bulk of water. That is, a teacupful of the 

 emulsion should be diluted with 30 teacupfuls of water and then a 

 tablespoonful of this diluted solution put in the depression about 

 each plant. 



The Cabbage Aphid: This plant louse like its other relatives 

 is a little rascal from the gardener's standpoint; its mouth is in 

 the form of a sucking tube which it inserts into the tissues of the 

 plant and sucks up its juices. The cabbage aphids occur in enor- 

 mous numbers on the cabbages in larger fields but is not found so 



