50 



WINDFALLS. 



or bud upon the crown, when broken or cut apart with 

 a portion of root attached, will make a good plant in 

 two years. On a large scale, it is best to raise the 

 plants from seeds. These are sown in drills in spring, 

 and the next fall or spring the young plants may be set 

 in the permanent plantation. This operation usually 

 requires a year longer than the other. The plants 

 should not be cut until the second season after trans- 

 planting, or the third season from seed. Rhubarb de- 

 mands a rich loose soil. It is usually planted 4x5 or 

 4x4 feet. 



Sage is grown from seed sown in spring. For house- 

 hold use, a few plants are allowed to stand permanently 

 in a bed, but for market it is grown as an annual crop. 

 The young plants are transplanted in June or July be- 

 tween rows of early [beets, early cabbages or other 

 crops, and the plants are ready to cut in the fall.] 



The Cabbage Louse. — Next to the cabbage worm, 

 the worst insect enemy of the cabbage is the aphis, or 

 plant-louse, which is so often found upon the leaves 

 and in the heads in great numbers. This is a small, 

 bluish white insect, that subsists upon the sap of the 

 plant and multiplies with great rapidity. Like most 

 of the peculiar family to which it belongs, this insect 

 has the power, not common among insects, of bringing 

 forth living young, but with most of those that have 

 been carefully studied, there is in the fall a sexual gen- 

 eration by which the true eggs are laid, and in this egg 

 state most of them pass the winter. But although the 

 cabbage aphis has been known both to Europe and 

 America for more than a century, the sexual generation 

 has never heretofore been found, and entomologists did 

 not know where or when the eggs were laid, nor how 

 the insect passed the winter. Recent investigations, 

 however, carried on at Ohio Experiment station by Dr. 

 C. M. Weed, has shown conclusively that the sexual 

 generation develop late in autumn on the cabbage, and 

 that the eggs are laid on the cabbage leaves. The true 

 male is a small winged creature, with a more slender 

 body than the other winged forms. The egg-laying fe- 

 male has no wings, and is pale green in color. 



This discovery of the fact that the insect passes the 

 winter in the egg state on the cabbage leaves has an 

 important economic bearing. It suggests, as one of the 

 best ways of preventing the injuries of this pest, the de- 

 struction during winter of the old cabbage leaves, with 

 the eggs upon them, instead of leaving them undis- 

 turbed until spring, as is too often done. 



The Cucumber Beetle. — Extensive experiments 

 were made last season upon remedies for the cucumber 

 beetle at the Ohio Experiment Station. "Two general 

 methods of treatment were employed ; (i) Coating the 

 plants with poisonous substances, and (2) fencing out 

 the insects by mechanical barriers. The best success 

 was attained in the first class of remedies, by the use 

 of tobacco powder — the refuse packing of the cigar 

 factories. A number of barrels ' of this substance 

 were obtained at a cigar factory. A shovelful of 

 powder was thrown on each hill. The first application 



was made to eighty hills, June 12th. Rains coming soon 

 after, it was repeated June 14th, i6th and 17th. The 

 results were excellent. The beetles seemed to dislike 

 working in the tobacco, and the plants on all the hills so 

 treated came through in good condition. Aside from 

 its value as an insecticide, the tobacco acts both as a 

 mulch and fertilizer. Chemical analysis shows that its 

 market value as a fertilizer is $25 per ton. In many 

 eastern cities it is being utilized, but in Columbus and 

 other Ohio cities many of the factories are glad to give 

 this refuse to any one who will take it away. 



Various methods of mechanical exclusion of the 

 beetles were again tried with gocd success. This may 

 be done by simply placing over the plants a piece of 

 thin plant-cloth, or cheese-cloth, about two feet square, 

 and fastening the edges down by loose earth. It is 

 better, however, to hold the center of the cloth up by 

 means of a half-barrel hoop, or wires bent in the form 

 of a croquet arch. 



It is frequently stated that these beetles will not 

 attack plants if simple frames, consisting of four pieces 

 of boards nailed together, without a top of any kind, 

 are placed over the hills. This method was tried, with 

 a number of frames ranging from four to ten inches in 

 height. As anticipated, the method was entirely un- 

 successful, every plant of the hills so covered being 

 destroyed by the beetles. 



Horticulture in the Schools. — For years past we 

 have been reaping the natural results of a system of 

 education that, intentionally or unintentionally, turns all 

 our young people for a livelihood towards the occupa- 

 tions of teachers, college professors, lawyers, physi- 

 cians, clergymen, book-keepers, salesmen, musicians, 

 artists, agents and business men — under which last 

 head a multifarious and heterogeneous legion of middle- 

 men are pleased to class themselves. These men have 

 had the control of educational affairs, and they have 

 kept the schools turning out their kind so long that 

 there is unquestionably in the country an overwhelm- 

 ing surplus of middlemen, non-producers and men 

 living by their wits. Such a surplus is bound to make 

 trouble. All are determined to live in affluence, if pos- 

 sible — genteelly at all events. 



Even the text books used in the common schools have 

 a powerful influence, mainly in the direction of those 

 unfortunate conditions to which reference has been 

 made. Our school books should not be in the interests 

 of trade more than in the interests of agriculture or 

 manufactures. The fact that they have been so, makes 

 them largely responsible for the present condition of 

 things. 



The introduction of horticulture into the common 

 schools will do much to counteract those baneful influ- 

 ences which have been mentioned. It will create that 

 respect for and intelligent appreciation of the culture 

 of the soil that is desirable ; it will check the tendency 

 to abandon the farm as soon as possible, if any educa- 

 tional means can; it will create a first love to return to 

 at a later period of life, and it will lead to a real demand 



