460 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
FLATTENED CENTIPEDE. HOW IT DESTROYS THE ONION. 
and worthless ? Is it not from being gnawed and wounded by these centi¬ 
pedes ? Had the cucumber mentioned above remained upon the vine, its 
wounded surface in healing would have become knobby and gummy, and 
in further growing it would have become crooked and deformed. I there¬ 
fore think it is these insects, crowding themselves underneath cucumbers 
which arc lying on or slightly sunk in the surface of the ground, and there 
nibbling and wounding the skin, that is one common cause of their becom¬ 
ing stunted, deformed and worthless. 
A peculiar disaster sometimes occurs to the onion. When the bulbs are 
small, having attained but a third or half their growth, many of them 
cease growing and the tops gradually wither and die. And on pulling up 
those which are thus affected, it is found that most of the thread-like root¬ 
lets underneath have been severed at the point of their junction with the 
bulb, as smoothly and evenly as though they had been cut off with a knife, 
only a few of the central ones retaining their connection with the bulb. 
Indeed, some instances occur in which all the rootlets are cut off. What 
is it that thus severs these rootlets, and hereby arrests the growth of the 
onion when it is so small as to be valueless ? When we raise one of these 
onions from the ground, we commonly find some of these young centipedes 
adhering to its underside, whilst more of them are lying among the severed 
ends of the rootlets in the bottom of the hole. And I make no doubt it is 
these worms that do this mischief. This disaster is most apt to occur, I 
think, when onions are growing thickly together. The bulbs crowding 
against each other as they increase in size, gradually raise each other up 
in an oblique direction, whereby a crevice is opened between the bulb and 
the earth in which it is imbedded. These centipedes wandering about upon 
the surface of the ground and coming to this crevice, enter it as is their 
wont, and there finding these rootlets, soft and tender, the very quality of 
food which they desire, they take up their abode there, and commence nib¬ 
bling the rootlets and thus cut them off one after another. Seed and Top 
onions are frequently leaned over by the weight of their long stalks, thus 
opening a crevice on one side of their bulbs also, into which these worms 
will be liable to enter ; though as their fibrous rootlets are less tender and 
delicate than those of young-seedling onions they will be less liable to be 
eaten by them. 
When engaged in setting out some young cabbage plants, I noticed a 
singular irregular warty swelling on the root of one of the plants. On a 
moment’s inspection it was perceived to be a healed wound which had been 
made upon the root ; and I recognized this swelling as being to all appear¬ 
ance the commencement or incipient stage of that remarkable disease of 
the cabbage, termed the anbury, or more commonly club root. If this root 
in its subsequent growth should be again wounded a few times in the samo 
manner, it was quite evident it would grow into the large knobby canker¬ 
like excrescence which constitutes that singular disease — whose cause 
has never yet been ascertained, though it is commonly conjectured to be 
occasioned by some insect. The query hereupon arose in my mind, how 
did this plant come to be thus wounded? The plant it was noticed was 
badly crooked, apparently from having been bent down to the ground when 
