196 GARDENING FOB THE SOUTH. 



After the late cabbages are transplanted, let them be 

 well cultivated by deep and frequent hoeing, and do not 

 strip off the lower leaves if you wish them to head. 



Insects. Many remedies are employed to keep off the 

 green worm, so destructive to the cabbage tribe. An in- 

 fusion of tobacco or of the ripe berries of the Pride of 

 China tree, sprinkled on them once or twice a week from 

 a water-pot, is said to be effectual. Sprinkling with ashes 

 is a good practice ; also to coop a brood of chickens near, 

 as they destroy the worm without injury to the cabbage. 

 Break off a leaf at night and place it on the top of the 

 head. In the morning early, most of the worms will be 

 on the under side of this leaf. Brush them off into a dish 

 of soapsuds. Repeat this daily until the worms are de- 

 stroyed. Aphides are not so apt to be troublesome when 

 the plants are in vigorous growth; an application of 

 strong soapsuds generally destroys them. Wetting the 

 leaves with water raised to the temperature of 130F., it 

 is said, will kill them without injury to plants. Dry 

 charcoal dust mixed with Scotch snuff and dusted over 

 them is another remedy. Air-slaked lime in which a 

 few drops of spirits of turpentine have been diffused, will 

 generally drive away both the aphides and the green worm. 



The small, black Flea-beetle, or Turnip-flea, frequently 

 attacks the young plants, and it is sometimes nearly impos- 

 sible to drive them away. In some localities the plants 

 have to be raised in boxes elevated five or six feet from 

 the ground to escape them. 



To preserve Cabbage. Heel them in in a dry situation, 

 up to their lower leaves on the north side of a fence or 

 building, and cover slightly with plank, straw, or pine 

 brush, to keep them from freezing and thawing during 

 the winter. It is not the frost, however, but the sun upon 

 them, while frozen, that does the injury. In Virginia and 

 northward, dig a trench on a gentle slope, and lay two or 

 three bean poles in the bottom ; on these, beginning at the 



