316 How THE FARM PAYS. 



the plants dusted over once or twice with tobacco dust. This same 

 insect, of a blue color, is often disastrous to the growing crop in the 

 field, and on its first appearance, tobacco dust should be applied, as, 

 of course, if the cabbage are headed up it could not be used. 

 Another insect which attacks them in these stages, is a species of 

 slug, or small caterpillar a green, glutinous insect, about one-fourth 

 or one-half inch in length. This is not quite so easily destroyed as 

 the other, but will also succumb to a mixture of one part white hellebore 

 to four parts lime dust, sprinkled on thick enough to slightly whiten 

 the plants. This same remedy we found to be the most efficacious in 

 preventing the ravages of the black flea, or "jumping jack," that is 

 often so destructive to cabbage plants sown or planted in open 

 ground during May and June, but in this case its application may 

 have to be repeated daily often for two weeks. 



Another most troublesome insect is the cabbage caterpillar, which 

 attacks the crop often when just beginning to head. This is the larvse 

 of a species of small white butterfly, which deposits its eggs on the 

 crop in May or June. When fields of cabbage are isolated, or 

 where neighbors can be found to act in unison, the best plan is to 

 catch the butterflies with an insect-catching net as soon as they show 

 themselves. This is the most effective and quickest way to get rid of 

 them. However, if that has been neglected, the caterpillar can be 

 destroyed by dusting white hellebore on the cabbages, but, of course, 

 this cannot be done when the heads are matured enough to be ready 

 to use, as the hellebore is to some extent poisonous, though used 

 when the plants are about half grown it will do no harm, as the rains 

 will have washed it sufficiently off by the time they head up. The 

 insects here described are not, probably, ah 1 that afflict the cabbage 

 crop. A letter just received from a gentleman in Montgomery, 

 Ala., says that the young cabbage plants in that region are often swept 

 in twenty-four hours by a small green worm a species of slug or cater- 

 pillar, no doubt. The remedy for all such is white hellebore powder, 

 which had better be dusted on the plants once a week as a, preventive, 

 before the insect makes its appearance. In fact, ah 1 remedies against 

 insects are best used as preventives, or at least, on the very first appear- 

 ance of the pest. But the insect enemies which attack the roots of the 

 cabbage are not so easy to destroy. In fact, with the wire worm and cab- 

 bage maggot we are almost helpless, as far as my experience has gone. 

 For the latter, which is the worst enemy, a remedy has recently been 

 recommended to me, which, as yet, I have had no opportunity to test. 

 It is to make a hole with the dibber, five or six inches deep, close to 

 the root of each plant, and drop into it nine or ten drops of bi-sulphide 

 of carbon, closing up the hole again. Last year the cabbage and 



