STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
493 
ONION-FLY • REMEDIES. 
decaying turnips and other vegetables, its larva living inside of 
the pupae of these flies, where on getting its growth it incloses 
itself in a yellow cocoon. Like other injurious insects which 
have come to us from the old world, the parasites, which in their 
native haunts prey upon them and constantly restrain their multi¬ 
plication and destructiveness, have not yet found their way to our 
shores. The only natural destroyer of the Onion-fly which I have 
observed, arc the Golden-eyed flies of the genus Chrysopa, in the 
order Neuroptera, a full account of which is given in my first 
report. I have repeatedly noticed one or more eggs of these 
insects, elevated upon their white hair-like pedicels, attached to 
the lower part of onion plants. In one instance ten of these eo-o-s 
were found in this situation, placed at equal distances apart in a 
straight row, an inch and a quarter in length. It is undoubtedly 
that its young may feed upon the eggs of the Onion-fly, that the 
Chrysopa fly places them in this situation. Puncturing and sucking 
the contents of the eggs which the onion flies deposit, as is its 
habit, one of these Chrysopa larvae residing upon an onion plant 
will ordinarily suffice to preserve it uninjured. Hence it will be 
seen what an important service they render us. 
These flies have, in many instances, disheartened people from 
attempting to grow onions; and where the crop has been nearly 
or quite destroyed one year, we may confidently expect there will 
he enough of these insects in that place the following year, to ruin 
the crop, it it is sowed. I have thought in such cases, a farmer, 
by making an onion bed upon some remote part of his farm, where 
none of these flics are present, and where there is no garden so near 
that they will be apt from thence to find their way to the spot, 
may probably elude this enemy and obtain a crop uninjured by 
these maggots. And by wholly ceasing to grow the onion one 
year in the garden, these insects will wholly vanish therefrom, 
whereby this vegetable may thereafter be grown without molesta¬ 
tion. 
As it requires several young seedling onions to nourish one 
maggot until it grows to maturity, our mode of growing onions, 
in contact with each other in rows, in a bod together, accommo¬ 
dates this insect perfectly, enabling it to find the root of one plant 
after another, without the least difficulty. If we wore to change 
our modo of culture, where this insect is present, and grow the 
onion in hills here and there among the other vegetables in tho 
