108 



LATE CABBAGE 



is from six to twenty cents, depending upon how many years 

 a man is able to use the same screening material. The in- 

 sect that made the most trouble in our locality last year was 

 the plant louse. It always seems to make the most trouble in 

 a dry season, because cold, wet weather will kill it. It has 

 great powers of reproduction, being capable of rearing from 

 twelve to twenty litters of brood in a single season, and in 

 turn the young will multiply when only six days old. Some 

 strains of cabbage seem to be attacked worse than others. 

 For instance, we had a narrow strip of red cabbage and a 

 narrow strip of Gregory's Danish Ball Head through our 

 field last year. These two strips seemed to be infested ten 

 times as badly as the rest of the field raised from our own 

 seed. We sprayed these two strips twice, while the rest of 

 the field seemed to be practically free from lice. The cabbage 

 louse being a sucking insect, most of us have always used 

 kerosene emulsion as a spray, but the Geneva Station now 

 recommends a mixture of three-quarters of a pint of "Black 

 Leaf 40" (nicotine mixture), four pounds of dissolved soap, 

 and forty to one hundred gallons of water. Small fields can 

 be sprayed with a knapsack sprayer, but for large areas an 

 orchard outfit with two leads of hose does the best work. 

 The plants will require a thorough wetting on both sides of 

 the leaves and also in the center. Two applications of this 

 kind have been found to entirely free a field from lice. Some- 

 times a little squirt hand spray can be used to advantage 

 where there are only a few patches of lice scattered here and 

 there. 



Some of us have been troubled with cutworms. Soil in- 

 fested with these should either be used for a cultivated crop 

 the year before cabbage are to be set or fall plowed and kept 

 dragged once a week before setting time. 



Conclusion. 



Four essentials for a good crop of cabbage are: (1) plants 

 raised from good seed which insures every plant to produce 

 a good head; (2) sufficient fertility to carry the crop through 

 the entire season; (3) maintaining the supply of moisture; 

 (4) thorough preparation of the soil and cultivation of the 

 crop. 



