HOW TO GROW CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER. 151 



It should be sprinkled over the Cabbage or Cauliflower 

 plants every two or three days until the worms have dis- 

 appeared. It is also recommended for all plants that are 

 affected by worms or caterpillars. 



The insects here described are not, probably, all that 

 afflict the Cabbage crop. A letter just received from a 

 gentleman in Montgomery, Alabama, says that the young 

 Cabbage plants in that region are often swept off in 

 twenty-four hours by a small green worm; a species of 

 slug or caterpillar, 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, all remedies against in- 

 sects are best used as preventives, or, at least, on the very 

 first appearance of the pests. 



But the insect enemies that attack the roots of the Cab- 

 bage are not so easy to destroy. In fact, with the Wire 

 Worm and Cabbage Maggot we are almost helpless, so 

 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, and closing 

 up the hole again. An observing market gardener from 

 central New York has saved his Cabbage and Cauliflower 

 plants from the maggots for years by observing that the 

 eggs are laid close to the stem of the Cabbage. When 

 half grown, the maggots are no larger than a pin's head, 

 and are loosely attached to the stems of the Cabbage. One 

 movement of the finger displaces them, and no further 

 harm ensues. The eggs are deposited by a fly about half 

 the size of the common house fly, usually here about the 

 middle of May, when the Cabbage starts to grow. Last 



