THE KITCHEN OR FARMEr's GARDEN. 251 



appears by thousands, at times, on cabbages and 

 turnips, and we have sometimes noticed them on 

 beets; but as these are the product of the eggs of a 

 moth, and, when young, are confined to a single leaf, 

 the gardener who begins with them in season will 

 have little difficulty in exterminating tliem, by pick- 

 ing all such leaves before the myriad brood is scat- 

 tered, and crushing the whole at once with the foot. 

 The same mode of extermination is also the best 

 that can be pursued with regard to the aphis, or 

 green plant-louse, that depredates so extensively on 

 most cultivated plants. The singular manner in 

 which the young of this insect is produced, gives a 

 rapidity of multiplication unknown to other insect 

 tribes, and enables a single female, when impregna- 

 ted, to become in a few days the parent of millions. 

 When a colony is observed on the turnip or cabbage, 

 or other plants, they should be exterminated at once, 

 or they will spread with astonishing rapidity. One 

 of the most effectual aids of the gardener in the de- 

 struction of insects is a brood of chickens. A hen 

 with a dozen or twenty chickens, placed in a porta- 

 ble coop, and the chickens allowed to run at large, 

 will destroy more bugs,' cut-worms, slugs, snails, 

 earthworms, and moths, than the most active and 

 skilful man ; and, while young, and their services the 

 most valuable, they will meddle with or injure no 

 plant. All the care requisite is the occasional feed- 

 ing of them with the hen. The multitudes of small 

 birds which abound where they are undisturbed also 

 destroy thousands of these insect depredators ; and 

 the disposition which unthinking boys or brutalized 

 men show to kill or maim these beautiful residents 

 of our groves or orchards, should meet with the se- 

 verest reprehension. 



When insects are, however, very numerous, it 

 may be desirable to use some other measures of 

 prevention or destruction, and a powder made of 

 soot, ashes, and charcoal, dusted over the plants, 



