THE CABBAGE MAGGOT. 317 



cauliflower in our " trial grounds " were attacked by the cabbage mag- 

 got at the roots early in May. A small handful of Peruvian Guano 

 was at once strewn around each plant and hoed in around the roots. 

 This at once started an unusual vigor of growth, which sustained the 

 plants until they matured excellent heads. Understand, the Guano did 

 not injure the insect, it only enabled the cabbage to outgrow its attack. 

 For the destruction of the insect which causes the excrescence known 

 as " club root " in cabbage a heavy dressing of lime in fall and spring 

 will check it to a great extent. In fact, on lands adjacent to the shores 

 of New York Bay, where the soil is mixed with oyster shell, " club root J> 

 is rarely seen, cabbage having been grown on some fields successively 

 for fifty years without a trace of it being seen, showing that the insect 

 that causes the "club root" cannot exist in contact with lime; for it 

 is found on lands where there is no oyster shell deposit, a quarter of 

 a mile distant, and cabbages cannot be grown two years in succession 

 on the same land, unless heavily dressed with lime, and even then it i& 

 always deemed safest never to plant cabbages two years in succession 

 on the same ground ; for while such crops as onions show but little 

 benefit by rotation with other crops, cabbages, perhaps more than, 

 anything else, are benefited by such alternation; and when it can be 

 done, nothing is better than to let the cabbage crop be alternated 

 with grasses, such as German millet, timothy or clover, or a crop of 

 oats or rye. This is the method pursued by many of the Long Island 

 market gardeners, who grow for the New York market, where their 

 lands are cheap enough to allow them to do so ; but the gardeners of 

 Hudson County, New Jersey, which is in sight of New York City, 

 whose lands now are limited in area, and for which an average of $50 

 per acre rent is paid per annum, cannot well afford to let their lands lay 

 thus comparatively idle, and in consequence do not now raise as fine 

 crops as the lands thus "rested" by the grass or grain crops. 



If the land for the cabbage crop is of a kind suitable to grow & 

 good crop of corn or potatoes, and is tilled or fertilized in the 

 manner advised, it is rare indeed that a crop will fail to head, if the 

 plants are in good condition, and have been properly planted, unless 

 they are attacked by the maggot or " club root." In our trial 

 grounds, where over a hundred different stocks of cabbage are tested 

 each year, we have found that every kind of cabbage tested, early or 

 late, have produced solid heads, showing thai ivhen the conditions are 

 right all kind* of cabbages will 'head up and produce a crop. A circum- 

 stance came under our notice, in the summer of 1882, which well 

 illustrates the necessity for care in planting. We had sold, some 

 time in February, a large lot of our " Early Summer " cabbage seed 

 to two market gardeners in Rochester, N. Y. The orders were filled 



