44 ONION-RAISING. 



Some writers state that the fly deposits its eggs only at an 

 early period in the growth of the plant. It is true that usu- 

 ally the injury is most marked previous to the bottoming of 

 the onion ; but I have seen beds injured at every stage of 

 their growth, and in one season about half of the crop was 

 destroyed by the maggot at the close of the season after the 

 onions had been pulled. Sometimes an extra pound or 

 more of seed is planted with the idea of allowing the mag- 

 got a share, with the hope that by so doing an average crop 

 may be raised. But, as the habit of the fly is to deposit its 

 eggs continuously in every plant until the supply is ex- 

 hausted, the result is an alternation of blank and extra thick 

 spaces. Various remedies have been proposed, but of these 

 it may be said that they are not practical on a large scale. 

 The idea on which most of these are based, is that of pro- 

 ducing a scent so disagreeable as to drive away the fly ; but 

 old experimenters recall the capacity of the canker-worm 

 moth and the squash-beetle to ignore the most repulsive ob- 

 structions of this kind, when stimulated by their instinct to 

 deposit their eggs. Pine sawdust, either clear, soaked in the 

 urine of cattle, or in the ammoniacal liquor from gas-works, 

 scattered over the bed just before the appearance of the 

 plants, at the rate of a bushel to ten square rods ; guano 

 sprinkled along the rows and on the plants, twice during the 

 season ; unleached ashes used in the same manner, — these 

 have given satisfactory results to some growers. Scalding 

 water poured from a common watering-pot through a hole 

 the size of a pipe-stem, along the drills near the roots of the 

 plants, and repeated three or four times during a season, is 

 said to be efficacious. It is obvious that the practical value 

 of suph a remedy must be confined to a very small area of 

 land. 



