158 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [16] 



Preventives of Cabbage-fly Attack. 



The " cabbage-maggot " — the larva of the cabbage-fly, Anthomyia 

 brassicce, has proved a difficult insect to control. Various remedies 

 and preventives have been given and suggested, none of which have 

 been found to serve the desired purpose of affording entire immunity 

 from its injuries in all localities. As the injury done to the plant is 

 beneath the surface of the ground, it is evident that the efficacy of 

 the proposed remedy may be materially affected by the character and 

 condition of the soil in which it is employed. Several of the methods 

 that have been found successful in preventing or lessening the losses 

 from this great pest, or that promise success, will therefore be 

 mentioned. 



1. Tobacco dust, to be procured from tobacco factories, sprinkled 

 freely over the young plants, is said to prevent the deposit of the 

 eggs by the fly. 



2. Mr. Peter Henderson claims that he has been able to prevent the 

 ravages in his sample grounds where all the varieties of cabbages and 

 cauliflowers are tested, by preparing the ground with a dressing of 

 150 bushels of oyster-shell lime to the acre. In one year when this 

 had been neglected, and a formidable attack was made upon the 

 plants about the middle of May, it was at once arrested, by scraping 

 the soil from the stem of each plant, dusting lime around it and draw- 

 ing up the ground again to the stem. In addition a handful of guano 

 was dusted around every five or six plants. Strong roots were made 

 above the wounds from the maggots, and the crop was saved. The 

 lime preventive was the result of fifteen years employment in success- 

 ful cabbage culture. Where the oyster-shell lime is not attainable, 

 its equivalent in stone-lime may be quite as efficient. (Rural New 

 Yorker, June 27, 1886, p. 433.) 



3. When gas-lime can be obtained as a refuse from gas-works, if 

 worked into the ground at a moderate depth after its exposure for a 

 proper time, it will effectually prevent the operations of the maggot. 



4. Ammoniacal liquor, another refuse from gas manufacture — 

 diluted with twice its volume of water and poured around the infested 

 plants in sufficient quantity to reach the roots, will kill the attacking 

 larvae. It will be a fine fertilizer, also. 



5. A contributor to the New England Homestead has given this 

 remedy: "Take green burdock leaves and stalks, run them through a 

 hay-cutter, put them in a kettle or tub, and mash them with an old ax 

 or mall, adding water and pounding them to a pulp. Let it stand over 

 night. Have the decoction strong, and when you see the first sign of 



