THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



69 



mittee, and I believe he crushes the bugs in 

 a fold of the leaf. 



ENEMIES OF THE CABBAGE FAMILY 



Have you ever noticed in August the sud- 

 den appearance of swarms of white butter- 

 flies? Have you ever driven through a 

 farming district and noticed the roads full 

 of them? Sometimes they are so numerous 

 that it seems as though they could not fly 

 away before the horses' hoofs and the car- 

 riage wheels have crushed them. Last 

 August I saw such a sight. There were tall 

 hedge-rows on either side of the road, but no 

 one needed to tell me what was behind those 

 hedge - rows. The butterflies announced 

 that, and soon an opening showed me the 

 cabbages and cauliflower — acres of them. It 

 is too bad that these pretty white creatures 

 should have such troublesome children. 

 Really, they are enough to drive one insane. 

 You know them, too, if you have ever had 

 cabbage, cauliflower, kale or the like in your 

 garden — little green soft creepers, voracious 

 children that grow into big green soft creepers 

 by eating great holes in the vegetable leaves. 

 These are imported creatures, and I wish they, 

 too, had stayed home. Our own worm is 

 bluish with yellow stripes, though the butter- 

 flies can scarcely be distinguished from one 

 another. 



One pound of fresh pyrethrum powder, 

 which has been mixed with five pounds of 

 flour, put into a tight vessel or tin box and 

 kept for twenty-four hours, then dusted into 

 the leaves at nightfall, may discourage these 

 creepers. The other poison powders previ- 

 ously described may also be used, and I have 

 heard of sprinkling salt on the leaves, which 

 is said to cause the worm to "melt away" 

 when it touches him, but I have never tried 

 this. I fear there would be damage to plants 

 unless extraordinary care were taken. There 

 is one thing, however, which will settle these 

 crawlers, and their cousins the loopers also. 

 That is the resin-lime mixture combined with 

 Paris green and Bordeaux. The cabbage 

 (also cauliflower and Brussels sprouts) 

 should be sprayed thoroughly with this twice, 

 once before the white butterflies appear, and 

 again in three weeks or so, being careful, 

 however, not to spray cauliflower after the 

 flower has set. 



The cabbage plusia is as fond of that 

 vegetable as our friends from Deutschland. 

 His mother is a dark-gray moth with a silver 

 mark on each wing (not sterling), and he is 

 pale-green, translucent, with paler stripes 

 from head to tail and more like the measuring 

 worm. He goes right into the heart of things 

 and can riddle a head of cabbage thoroughly 

 in short order. 



The poor cabbage goes lame, gets the club 

 root (a swelling of the root), and succumbs to 

 it in a short while. Cauliflower, turnips, 

 and other members of the cabbage family 

 also have this peculiarly named disease, and 

 when it appears, the only thing to do is to 

 cease growing them and buy these vegetables 

 for two years or more, until the germ has been 

 starved out of the soil. 



If the onions turn yellow, you may know 

 the maggot is at their loots. Spray the 



lower stem and the soil with kerosene emul- 

 sion. If this fails, you would better pull the 

 injured plants and burn them. These 

 creatures, which are the larva; of a brown fly, 

 also infest cabbage and cauliflower, and the 

 same remedy may be applied. 



PLANT LICE AND OTHER SUCKERS 



Plant lice or aphides also come to cabbages. 

 They have a sort of purplish tinge and make 

 great clusters on the stems and young leaves. 

 They also visit cauliflower and turnips. 

 Kerosene emulsion is good (or bad) for them, 

 or tobacco tea made by boiling one pound 

 of tobacco leaves in two gallons of water for 

 a short half - hour and spraying it on the 

 plant when cold. 



The chinch bug and tassel worm do get into 

 the corn once in a while, but don't trouble 

 us very much. Kerosene emulsion "fixes" 

 the former, which, when full grown and 

 beyond the harmful stage, is a tiny sucking 

 creature with white wings with two black 

 spots on them. The latter must be picked 

 by hand. 



AN ENEMY OF THE CARROT FAMILY 



You remember the black butterfly with 

 yellow and blue spots on her wings ? She is 

 a beauty, and her children are likewise hand- 

 some — green caterpillars with yellow spots. 

 They are fond of celery, parsley and the like, 

 but as they are not very numerous they can 

 be exterminated by hand. 



THE VILLAINOUS WHITE GRUBS 



Do you remember the May beetles, or 

 "June bugs," as we used to call them, that 

 flew into the school-room in the evening 

 during study hour at boarding-school ? And 

 how scared some of the girls used to get for 

 fear one would light on them or get in their 

 hair? They are funny creatures, always 

 bumping their heads against the ceiling and 

 doing idiotic things generally. Their young 

 are grubs which feed on the roots of plants. 

 They generally come in grass land, and moles 

 are very fond of them, so we let Mr. Mole 

 live, though we do hate his modern method of 

 "subway" travel. If these grubs get very 

 bad, trap the moths with the torch in the 

 kerosene and water tub. 



SMUT, RUST AND OTHER FUNGI 



These are the "critters" that most dis- 

 turb our garden peace. But there are others, 

 especially the fungi, which are themselves 

 plants that live on plants. Corn smut is one 

 of these parasites. It is a fungus that grows 

 very rapidly and may attack any part of the 

 plant's system, causing a swelling whose 

 silver-white coating conceals a peculiar black 

 mass filled with fibers. As I said before, 

 burn it, stamp on it, anything to destroy it at 

 once, before it sows its spores to be reaped 

 again in increasing quantity in the same 

 crop the following year. There is no known 

 "medicine" for it. 



Bean rust comes in damp weather. It 

 makes a rusty spot on the pods and leaves 

 and can be controlled, if not obliterated, by 

 using Bordeaux mixture, but I should be 

 afraid the beans might retain a little of it 



96. Buy fresh hellebore and dust Ihe powder on 

 the currant bushes or epply it with a bellows 



97. Paris green for chewing insects. Used as a 

 powder or mixed in liquids and sprayed 



98. Various types of spraying apparatus, including a 

 dollar sauirt-gun of tin and a KnapsacK sprayer 



99. Kersone emulsion, hard to maKe ami nasty for 

 folKs, and plant lice or other sucKing insects 



