184 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



several degrees below zero in March, and so continued for three 

 days, the wind all the while blowing a gale. As a consequence 

 there was no cabbage seed raised in New England that season. 

 AVhat was in the market brought ten dollars a pound at wholesale. 

 I have personally reason for remembering the event for I lost 

 20,000 heads in a single bed. After the cabbages are planted 

 out the ends of the sprouts are liable to be nipped by late frosts, 

 the result of which is to mal^e a growth of branches starting low 

 down and getting top-heavy and breaking off as the season 

 advances. As the seed matures the seed birds claim their share, 

 which is sometimes a large one. I have dreaded inroads from 

 English sparrows, but thus far, tliough seed-eating birds, as 

 is evident from their short, strong bills, have lost but little 

 cabbage seed by them. Millet seed they claim a monopoly 

 of. Parsnip seed, when near ripening, is oftentimes attacked by 

 a web worm which soon ruins the crop if it is not sprinkled with 

 air-slacked lime. Perhaps some of the new insecticides would 

 be as efficacious. 



Beans, especially of the White Wax variety, are very likely to be 

 attacked by the fungus popularly called the rust. 'This first 

 attacks the pods and works through to the beans themselves, not 

 injuring their vitality but giving them an unsightl}^ appearance. 

 If they are sufficiently matured to allow them to be pulled as soon 

 as the fungus appears on the pods, the beans can thus be saved from 

 injur}^ The bean weevil is working his way north and begins to 

 make serious trouble in some localities. Peas are also troubled 

 with these weevils, but by the use of bi-sulphide of carbon they 

 can be desti'oyed while yet too young* to injure the peas for seed 

 purposes. Late planted peas and those raised far north are almost 

 exempt from their ravages. In raising peas for seed it will not do 

 to manure too highly, as this may produce in some varieties a second 

 or even third setting of pods, which will make the picking of them 

 over very costly. I have paid sixty dollars for the picking over of 

 as many bushels. Lettuce is a difficult seed to raise near the sea- 

 coast, where it is very apt to blast. Carrots are a hard seed stock to 

 keep. They cannot be pitted like beets for they will heat and rot ; 

 if kept in cellars they are apt to dry hard or again rot. If piled 

 wood fashion, they will usually, but not always, keep well, and the 

 same may be said of them when laid lengthwise in open and nicked 

 barrels. 



