1884 .] 
AMERIOAI^ AGRICULTURIST. 
of potatoes. One be “ greened ” in good season, 
and the other he thought would get along without 
it. About three weeks afterwards he found that 
the potatoes where no Paris Green was used were 
covered with the bugs. He then applied the 
poison, and at the same time repeated the appliea- 
tion on the first field. On the first field he had two 
hundred bushels per acre, on the other not fifty 
bushels, and part were so poor that he did not dig 
them at all. He lost not less than five hundred 
dollars worth of potatoes for the want of three or 
four dollars worth of labor and Paris Green. 
The Cabbage Fly and its Relatives. 
In England, one of the greatest obstacles the 
cabbage-grower has to contend with is the maggot 
of the Cabbage Fly, which sometimes destroys 
whole fields of cabbages. As the insect has already 
appeared in this country, and has done some dam¬ 
age, our readers are interested in knowing some¬ 
thing about it in advance, that they may be pre¬ 
pared to meet it, when it makes its appearance in 
their crops. The insect is own brother to the de¬ 
structive Onion Fly, the Beet Fly, and the Seed- 
corn Maggot, all of which belong to the genus 
Anthomyia, the Cabbage Fly being A. bramcce. The 
maggots, 1 in the engraving, eat numerous holes in 
the stems and roots of the cabbages, on account of 
which, especially in wet weather, decay sets in, 
and the plant perishes. The maggot, when full 
grown, is about a third of an inch long, is whitish, 
leg-less, tapering to the head, and blunt at the 
tail, which has short teeth-like points at the margin. 
When its growth is complete, the maggot enters 
the earth, and chaTiges to a reddish-brown puiai, 
with a few black spots at the head, and short teeth 
at the tail, seen in the engraving at 3 and 3, natur¬ 
al size and magnified. In two or three weeks the 
flies come out, and lay eggs for another crop, and 
successive generations are produced until Novem¬ 
ber, after which time the pupae remain in the 
ground unhatched until spring. Cabbages, when 
attacked by the maggot, show by a drooping of 
their leaves, and by a change in color, that some¬ 
thing is wrong. The application of clear lime- 
water, made as soon as the presence of the maggot 
is detected, has been found useful. As the mag¬ 
got enters the ground close to the plant, and goes 
down but a short distance, it is recommended, to 
draw the earth from around the root, with the 
pupae in it, and destroy them by heat or deep bur¬ 
ial. But such measures as these can only be prac¬ 
ticable in the garden. On a large scale, relief can 
only be had by a change of crop, occupying the 
land with beans, grain, or some other crop, upon 
which the parent fly will not deposit her eggs. 
Another species is known as the Root-eating Fly, 
A. radiciim, the maggots of which are found in 
cabbages and turnips in England ; these very close¬ 
ly resemble the maggots of the preceding, but are 
of a more ochre-like color. The perfect fly is 
shown at 4, magnified, the lines giving the real 
size ; its colors are black and gray. This insect 
has not yet been noticed in this country, but curi¬ 
ously enough a maggot, which is very destructive 
to the eggs of the Locust, that plague of the far 
West, was found to be the larva of a fly, so closely re¬ 
sembling this European Root-eating Fly, that Prof. 
Riley has described it as a variety of this species. 
Though our potato crop has already a suffleient 
pumber of enemies, there is a possibility that one 
O Q rr 
<jO 1 
more may be introduced. In England the maggot 
of another species of Anthomyia^ A. tuberosa, feeds 
upon the potato. The maggot is given at 0 and 7, 
of its real size and magnified,and the fly at 8 and 9. 
Floral Chenille—Spraguea. 
Among the interesting plants made known by 
the e*irly explorers of the Sierra Nevada, is a mem¬ 
THE FLORAL CHENii.LE {Spragwa nmbellata), 
ber of the Purslane or Portulaca family. This 
proved to be very interesting to botanists, and Dr. 
Torrey, in view of the great services Mr. Isaac 
Sprague had rendered to botany, by his wonderful¬ 
ly accurate drawings, named the plant Spraguea. 
After some years the seeds of this plant were sent 
to Europe, and it went into cultivation. The 
flowers themselves are very small, and have no 
beauty, but their large and persistent sepals and 
bracts, crowded together, make a curious inflores¬ 
cence. These flower clusters, of a peculiar warm 
gray color, were at once adopted by the French 
florists as a- most useful material with which to 
finish off the lower portion of a bouquet. From the 
resemblance of the flower spikes to that kind of 
trimming, called Chenille, the plant was named by 
the French florists “ Chenille Florale,” and became 
for a time quite the flower fashion in Paris. The 
plant is a biennial. Its flower stalks, produced the 
second year, are six inches or more high, sur¬ 
mounted by the peculiar, recurved, densely flow¬ 
ered clusters. The seeds are offered by our lead¬ 
ing seedsmen. The engraving represents the plant 
in bloom, showing its peculiar habit. Our only 
trial with the plant was in an unusually dry season, 
and the next year it failed to flower satisfactorily. 
Lady-birds and their Larvae. 
It is fortunate that the Lady-birds are generally 
so prettily colored, and so handsomely spotted. 
Otherwise they might fare badly at the hands of 
those who call every insect a bug, and kilt it with¬ 
out stopping to ask what it does for a living. Even 
those who spare them do not generally know that 
the Lady-birds have a claim to exemption, beyond 
their good looks ; it is a case where “handsome 
does ” goes with “ handsome 
is.” It should be generally 
kno.vn, and children ought to 
be taught that these are among 
our most useful insects, and 
rid us of vast numbers of 
other insects that do us dam¬ 
age. Every one knows the 
Lady-birds in their perfect 
state, but they do the most of 
their beneficial labor, so to 
speak,in their working clothes, 
or in the larval state. In this, 
or the caterpillar condition, 
they are not very attractive, 
though highly useful, and it 
is important that every one 
should be able to know them 
in every form they assume. 
In the engraving figure 3 
represents the general appear¬ 
ance of the larva3. They arc 
usually lead-colored, and often 
marked with yellow, red, and 
other colors. They move 
about in such a busy manner 
that one would hardly sup¬ 
pose them to be caterpillars. 
Like other caterpillars they 
are great feeders, but unlike 
most, instead of feeding di¬ 
rectly upon our plants, they 
do it at second hand and eat 
Die insects that eat our plants, 
and render great service in 
devouring myriads of plant 
lice and other small insects. 
They actually attack the dis¬ 
gusting fat larva of the Potato- 
bug of Colorado, which few 
other creatures, whether bird 
or beast, can stomach. After 
an active useful life of about 
three weeks, they take a well 
earned rest; hanging them¬ 
selves up by the tail, they be¬ 
come shining black ch.-ysalids 
as shown in figure 1. In this 
condition it appears quite un¬ 
like the lively larva it was 
before, or the bright-colored 
spotted beetle that it will he, 
and it is espiecially important that it should be 
recognized in this state, as it is exposed to great 
danger from ignorance of its real character. We 
knew of a person who ought to have known better 
who went out to pick bugs from the potatoes in 
his garden. He came back with a nice collection 
LADT-BIRDS, LARVA, CHRTSALLDS AND BEETLES. 
of Lady-birds in the chrysalis state, not knowing 
his friends from his enemies. This is one of the 
cases in which even a slight knowledge of insects 
has a cash value. These engravings will enable 
even the children to know the useful Lady-birds 
under all their disguises and treat them as friends. 
