198 



CULINARY OR KITCHEN GARDEN. 



at the head, and minute teeth at the tail. The 

 flies which hatch from them differ so much in 

 Fig. 79. 



CABBAGE-FLY, 



the sexes, that they do not look like the same 

 species. The male is ashy grey and very bristly ; 

 the eyes nearly meet ou the crown, and the face 

 is silvery grey, with a long black streak on the 

 forehead ; the two horns are small, black, with 

 a downy bristle ; the trunk is grey, sides whit- 

 ish, with three faint broken stripes down the 

 back ; body linear, shining grey, with a black 

 stripe along the centre ; the edges of the seg- 

 ments are also black; two wings transparent; 

 two balancers ochreous ; legs black and spiny. 

 Female ash grey ; face silvery white; sides of the 

 trunk pale ; eyes distant, with a broad black 

 stripe between them, of a chestnut colour in 

 front ; the body is conical at the tip ; the wings 

 are ochreous at the base ; nearly ± of an inch 

 long, and \ an inch in expanse. 



" Anthomyia trimaculata is another species 

 which attacks the roots of cabbages in summer 

 and autumn. The male fly is light grey, reflect- 

 ing white, with four black broken stripes down 

 the trunk; three brown spots on the scutel; a 

 black stripe on the body, which is checkered 

 with brown ; the legs are black. The female is 

 a little larger and paler ; tips of thighs and 

 shanks reddish brown." 



Regarding the diseases to which turnips are 

 liable, the anbury and the finger-and-toes are the 

 principal, if they are in reality distinct, which we 

 believe they are not. The cause of these well- 

 known diseases seems little understood ; at least, 

 opinions on the subject are at great variance one 

 with another. Mr Marshall, in " Rural Economy 

 of Norfolk," vol. ii. p. 33, ascribes it, according to 

 the long-received opinion, to repeatedly cropping 

 the same ground with the same crop, bad culti- 

 vation, and also the presence of an insect in the 

 tap-root, by which the course of the sap is divid- 

 ed, and instead of the natural bulb an excrescence 

 is produced. Mr Stephens, however, in " The 

 Book of the Farm," vol. ii. p. 80, denies this, and 

 we think with much better judgment. After 

 stating the well-known fact that this disease has 

 occurred on ground never before cropped with 

 turnip, this high authority remarks : " If the dis- 

 ease were occasioned by the puncture of insects, 

 better cultivation would not abate its virulence, 

 but rather increase it, as the turnip would 

 thereby be rendered much more palatable to 



them. The truth is, all such diseases arise from 

 poverty of the soil — either from want of manure, 

 when the soil is naturally poor, or rendered 

 effete by over-cropping. Labour, clean, and 

 manure the soil fully, according to the condition 

 it presents, and no anbury will appear, unless it 

 may happen in peculiar seasons, which always 

 counteracts the effect of culture, and affects 

 plants in a manner similar to the want of nourish- 

 ment. Insects are invariably found in the bulbs 

 of turnips diseased with anbury, but they are the 

 effect, and not the cause of the disease, as the 

 habits of the insects clearly indicate." Repeatedly 

 cropping the same ground would have analogous 

 effect to poverty in the soil, as crop after crop 

 would exhaust the soil of those principles neces- 

 sary for the most perfect growth of the plant, 

 and hence debility in the vegetable system 

 would be the consequence, and a predisposition 

 induced to the formation of these excrescences. 

 On dissecting these swellings while in a growing 

 state, no traces of insects are detected ; but when 

 decomposition takes place, several species of in- 

 sects are then to be found feeding on the putrid 

 mass, attracted no doubt to it by some peculiar 

 instinct. These insects, however, will be found 

 in the soil, and amongst the manure applied to 

 the crop, and would doubtless remain there, and 

 feed on other food, were the turnips free of this 

 disease altogether. 



Others, however, trace the cause of this dis- 

 ease to insect attacks, and attribute it to Cur- 

 culio pleurostigma, and describe its operations 

 thus : — The maggot found in those excres- 

 cences so frequently met with in the Bras- 

 sica tribe, particularly in old gardens, where 

 these crops have been long cultivated, and known 

 by the names Ambury, Anbury, Fingers-and- 

 toes, Club-root, &c, is the larva of this weevil. 

 It is described by Marsham as of a dusky black 

 colour, having the breast spotted with white, 

 the length of the body being one line and two- 

 thirds. Clubbing often makes its appearance on 

 the roots even while in the seed-bed, and at first 

 assumes the form of a small gall or wart ; as the 

 plant progresses, these become more numerous 

 and increased in size ; and within each, when cut 

 open, is found the maggot, the larva of this insect. 

 If left undisturbed, the maggot continues to feed 

 upon the young woody part of the root, until it 

 arrives at its pupa state, when it emancipates 

 itself by eating a hole through the outer bark. 

 While the maggot continues to feed on the 

 alburnum, the excrescences enlarge ; and as the 

 alburnum becomes destroyed, the sap is pre- 

 vented from ascending, and the plant languishes 

 from want of support ; and this becomes evident 

 in dry weather, or in hot sultry days, when they 

 will be seen flagging and ultimately dying. This 

 disease is said to be more prevalent in old garden- 

 ground than in newly cultivated soils, and more 

 especially where successive crops of Brassica 

 have been grown year after year, and is ac- 

 counted for from the circumstance of the eggs 

 of successive generations being deposited in the 

 soil, until at last it becomes completely replete 

 with them. This disease is of more frequent 

 occurrence in very dry seasons than otherwise, 

 because such seasons are more favourable for 



