42 A MANUAL OF 



THE CABBAGE MAGGOT. This is the same 

 little miscreant which we have already alluded 

 to, which gets into the plant-beds and eats the 

 fibrous roots off the growing plants, leaving 

 ^only the one tap-root, which, in order to make 

 a desperate effort to sustain the plant alone, 

 runs down two or three times its natural 

 length, and, if it be fortunate enough to escape 

 the fungoid Chtb-root, may put out new fibres 

 from its sides, after being removed from the 

 vicinity of its parasitic enemies, the maggots. 

 But the chances are against it ; the Fates have 

 thrown their arms around it, and, in the major- 

 ity of instances, its future course is downward, 

 its doom is sealed. 



"Well," once exclaimed a well-informed 

 market-gardener, who is certainly a closer 

 reasoner upon most subjects than the habits of 

 insects, " when your soil gets as full of those 

 little white worms as mine is, you will have to 

 stop growing cabbage plants." And, indeed, 

 he is not the only man who has fallen into the 

 error of supposing, or taking it for granted, 

 that because these worms make their appear- 

 ance in his plant-beds that they previously 

 existed in his soil as naturally as " angle-worms," 

 and that to escape their ravages he must find 



