STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
461 
FLATTENED CENTIPEDE. PROBABLE CAUSE OF CLUB BOOT IN CABBAGES. 
it was younger, probably by a shower of rain, and not having been able to 
again recover its perpendicular position. And this wound had been made just 
below the surface of the ground, upon the side where the force bending the 
plant had been applied. Several of the other plants which were similarly 
bent, were now observed to. have similar warty swellings from healed 
wounds upon the roots, the wounds being in every instance in the same 
position, that is to say, with the top of the plant inclining from the side 
where the wound had been made. It hereupon occurred to me, that these 
plants being thus bent over, the upper part of their roots^tanding in the 
soft ground of the seed bed would participate in the violence and be carried 
slightly to one side in the same direction, thus opening a slight crevice 
upon their opposite side. And into these crevices some of these small 
young centipedes had probably crawled, and gnawed the tender white bark 
of the root to which they h%d thus obtained access, thus making the wounds 
the scars of which were now noticed. Obviously no worm residing under¬ 
ground would come to the roots on the same side in every instance, and 
wound them in this regular manner. 
It will now, I think, be easily perceived how the club root in the grow¬ 
ing cabbages is probably caused by these insects. The large thick leaves 
of the cabbage spreading out as they do but a few inches above the ground, 
keep its surface shaded, cool and moist, thus inviting these insects to the 
spot. A strong wind, blowing in one direction all day and repeatedly 
catching the leaves of the cabbage, gradually work it over to one side, thus 
causing the stalk to be inclined instead of perpendicular, (as we see in so 
many instances in every cabbage yard,) and hereby opening a crevice down¬ 
ward .upon one side of its root. Into this crevice a multitude of these cen¬ 
tipedes will soon be gathered, and will there take up their abode, feeding 
upon and eroding' any tender succulent parts of the root which they are 
able to find. And this injury goes on augmenting, for as the vegetable 
increases in size its top becomes heavier, weighing the inclined stalk still 
further over and opening the cleft at its root wider and deeper, thus pre¬ 
senting new portions for the worms to feed upon. The root being thus con¬ 
tinually wounded and irritated, an increased flow of juices to the part is 
produced and kept up, causing it to grow and swell out into the knobby 
fungus-like excrescence of the anbury. I feel very confident this is the 
way this disease is produced. 
These young centipedes are equally as abundant in our grain fields as in 
our gardens. I, however, defer a further account and a full description of 
them until I shall have observed their habits more fully, and have only to 
remark in conclusion of this present notice that I have always regarded 
them as being identical with the species similarly common in the gardens 
and grain fields of Europe, named complanatus by LinnaJus, the name Poly- 
demus canadensis being also given to one of the varieties of our insect 
described by Mr. Newport in his valuable monograph of this family, in the 
Annals and Magazine of Natural History, vol. xiii, p. 265. 
