INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CABBAGE AND OTHER CROPS I49 



bright yellow or red. The eggs (d) are beautiful objects, 

 looking like miniature white barrels bound with black hoops, 

 and with black spots set in the proper place for bung-holes. 



This insect accomplishes its work of destruction by sucking 

 the sap from leaves and veins of cabbage and other crucifers, 

 the aiTected leaves wilting, withering and dying as if fire- 

 swept — whence the name "fire bug." Half a dozen mature 

 insects suffice to destroy a small plant in a day. This is a 

 pest which, if permitted to have its own way. is almost certain 

 to destroy a portion, and if sufficiently numerous, all of the 

 fields which it infests, and the writer has seen in the vicinity of 

 the District of Columbia, in Maryland and Virginia many fields 

 in successive years from which not a single good cabbage could 

 be cut, and has observed equal injury to horseradish and some 

 other crucifers. Toward the end of the season and in early 

 winter the mature bugs are still afield, seeming loath to seek 

 shelter from the cold. When cruciferous crops have become 

 exhausted they attack almost any form of vegetation. 



Preventive and Remedial Measures. — The difficulty of de- 

 stroying this insect with contact poisons such as kerosene- 

 soap emulsion, which are practically inert against the adults 

 and only partially effective on the youngest nymphs, necessi- 

 tates the Use of preventives to compass this end. The most 

 important is clean farm practice. The practice of leaving 

 cabbage stalks and other cruciferous plants in the field late in 

 autumn and early winter, or of allowing cruciferous weeds to 

 grow up, or, in fact, allowing any sort of debris to accumulate, 

 serves to protract the life of this insect by affording it food 

 or quarters for protection against the cold. It is inadvisable 

 to plant crucifers in the vicinity of outhouses and barns, as 

 the bugs use such places for passing the winter. 



Some of the insect's food plants may be left, after cropping, 

 at intervals throughout fields to attract the bugs in the fall, 

 and here they may be killed with crude kerosene, by mechanical 



