INSECTS. 319 



CHAPTER XIX. 

 INSECTS. 



We have but little trouble with insects in our highly 

 cultivated grounds ; what with, continued moving of the 

 soil by plowing and harrowing every foot, from three to 

 four times each season, incessant hoeing, and the digging 

 up of the crops, we give these pests but little chance for 

 a foot-hold. We are, however, occasionally troubled with 

 Aphides, the "Green-fly," in our forcing-houses of Let- 

 tuce. Another kind of aphis, closely allied to the green, 

 assumes a bluish color when it attacks the Cabbage crop, 

 either in frames or outside. A complete remedy for 

 either pest, in its early stages, is tobacco stems steeped 

 in water to give it about the color of strong tea, and ap- 

 plied with a syringe or watering-pot, or tobacco dust, or, 

 in fact, tobacco in any form that it can be applied. 

 "Jumping Jack," or the Turnip-fly, occasions some 

 trouble with late sowings of Cabbages, Turnips, and 

 Radishes, but we find an excellent preventive in dust- 

 ing lime over the beds as soon as the seeds begin to 

 germinate. It is of the utmost importance to use preven- 

 tives in the case of insects, for if once they get a lodg- 

 ment, it is almost useless to attempt 'their destruction. 

 The striped Cucumber-bug, which, with us, attacks late 

 sowings only, we have found to yield readily to a few ap- 

 plications of bone dust, which serves the double purpose 

 of disturbing the insect and encouraging the growth of 

 the crop. But our most formidable enemy of the insect 

 tribe is that which attacks the roots of the Cabbage fam- 

 ily, causing the destructive disease known as the "club- 

 root." There is a general misconception of the cause of 

 this disease ; happily our peculiar location here gives 

 me the means, I believe, of thoroughly disproving some 



