92 



VEGETABLE GARDENING. 



Tiiese, it is evident to anyone, can be safely applied before the 

 plants commence to head, and recent careful trials and analy- 

 ses of cabbage thus treated with Paris green, show there is very 

 little danger in using it at any stage of the plants. It is the sim- 

 plest of remedies and effective yet not dangerous. There are 

 parasites that attack and kill the worms and chrysalides, and Dr. 

 Lugger has shown clearly that they sometimes may be destroyed 

 very rapi-dly by disease as well as insect parasites. It is not 

 uncommon to have nearly all these worms die in the latter part 

 of any season from one or both of these causes. 



Cabbage Piusia. (Plusia brassicae.) — The cabbage plusia eats 

 irregular holes in the leaves, and burrows into the heads of 

 the cabbage. The parent insect is a moth of a dark-gray color 



Figure 37. — Snapping beetle or wire worm with larva.e. 



distinguished by a silver mark on each wing. The eggs are laid 

 on the upper surface of the leaves singly or in clusters. They 

 soon hatch into pale green translucent worms, marked with 

 paler longitudinal stripes on the back and sides. When fuii 

 grown these are about two inches long. They resemble spai 

 worms in their mode of locomotion, hence are easily distinguished 

 from the cabbage worm. The full grown caterpillar spins a 

 cocoon, generally on the under side of the cabbage leaf, in which 

 it undergoes its changes. The insect winters over in the pupal 

 state. The remedies for this pest are the same as those 



