EEPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



321 



REMEDIES. 



The remedies which have thus far been proposed mny he summed 

 up as follows : 



Dip the roots, as the youug cabbages are transplanted, iu oil or lye 

 of ashes. (Douche.) 



Pull up and remove infested plants on the first symptoms of insects 

 at the roots. Carry them away and burn them and fill up the hole from 

 which they were removed with brine or lye of ashes. (Curtis.) 



"In other instances where the maggots have made great havoc with 

 the cabbages, cauliflowers, and broccoli, gardeners have collected large 

 quantities Of the brown pupae from the roots with the hope of checking 

 their increase ; and as the transformations of the insect are in rapid 

 succession, it must have a good effect." (Curtis). 



Apply salt to the field at the rate of 86 bushels per acre and mix 

 with surface 4 inches deep. Also water the plants with mixture of one 

 gallon soapsuds to one gallon of gas- water. Beware of fresh, uurotted 

 manure : use none that is not thoroughly rotted. (Curtis.) 



Sift powdered tobacco on the leaves as a preventive. 



P. T. Quinn, in his Money in the Garden, states that he offered 8100 

 for a remedy for the maggot, and received a large number in reply. 

 Those which gave the best results were, dusting the roots of the cab- 

 bages with fine bone-dust, and the application of one teaspoonful of 

 caustic shell lime to each plant, first "removing a little earth from 

 around the stem, puttiug on the lime, and then replacing the soil." 



Taschenberg gives a remedy taken from the Bulletin de la Soci£t6 

 Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou, XVIII (1855), No. 3, which is to 

 scatter coal dust around the roots of the majority of the plants in the 

 field, leaving here and there a plant untouched. The flies in laying 

 their eggs avoid the spots where the coal dust lies and seek out the 

 unprotected plants, which will thus act as traps, since they can at the 

 proper time be pulled up and the maggots and pupae at the roots de- 

 stroyed. This seems to us the most rational remedy yet proposed, and 

 we have no doubt but that it can be used with good results. Slaked lime 

 or ashes can undoubtedly be substituted for the coal dust (Kohleupul- 

 ver) mentioned by Taschenberg. 



It is certain from the statement of European observers that this spe- 

 cies winters largely in the pupa state, therefore late fall plowing will 

 prove a partial preventive. Since it seems highly probable that many 

 of the larvae also hibernate, the pulling up and burning of the stalks 

 and roots, after the cabbages have been cut, is much to be recommended. 



Since the use of bisulphide of carbon against the root-inhabiting form 

 of the Grape Phylloxera, we have recommended it for all root- feeding 

 insects, and that it is satisfactory against this Cabbage Anthomyia is 

 proved by the experiments of Prof. A. J. Cook in 1880.* A small hole 

 is made in the earth near the main root of the plant by forcing in a 

 small stick, and about one-half a teaspoonful of the liquid is poured in, 

 when the hole is quickly filled in with earth, which is pressed down with 

 the foot. In every case the insects were killed without injury to the 

 plauts. In the use of this substance the extreme inflammability of its 

 vapor must be remembered, and where much of it has to be used in the 

 ground a good injector should be obtained, like the Gastine injector so 

 commonly used for the purpose in France. As a safer and simpler 

 remedy we strongly recommend the kerosene emulsion. 



* American Entomologist, Vol. Ill, p. 264. 



21 A '84: 



