1871 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
223 
they are not feci on the ground with hay or 
fodder, that will make long unrotted manure. 
Do not allow stock to tramp the ground after 
it thaws in the spring. You now have the 
ground in a condition to make a splendid gar¬ 
den. The other garden or compartment is to be 
prepared in a like manner for the next year’s 
use, thus using one of the gardens each alter¬ 
nate year. Of course perennials of all kinds 
will have to be allotted a separate place. I 
will not try to tell you of the crops that we 
raised on our sheep-yard, for we neither meas¬ 
ured nor weighed but one of the crops, but our¬ 
selves and all that saw, were astonished. The 
one we did measure was “ set onions,” as we 
call them ; or, as they are called by some, “ top 
onions.” This was a bed 8 feet wide and 30 
feet long. From this we gathered 13 gallons of 
the top onions; 11 gallons we sold at 80 cents 
per gallon, and 3 bushels of the root onions, 
which were put away to raise another crop. 
I have not written this for publication, but 
that you might urge upon Western farmers a 
better preparation of their garden ground. 
The Cabbage Pest.— {Pieris rapce.) 
BY W. V. ANDREWS. 
The butterfly Pieris rapce, has become so com¬ 
mon in certain localities, and is such a pest 
to farmers and gardeners, that it becomes a duty 
to offer a few words of warning to those not 
yet visited by it. Much may be done by per¬ 
sistent work at the caterpillars. From a patch 
of cabbage plants, about four yards square, I 
picked off over two hundred caterpillars, but, 
being unable to attend to the work continu¬ 
ously, left enough behind to devour the whole 
of the cabbage plants. But had everybody 
done as much as I did, what a difference in the 
number of P. rapce would there now have been, 
so far as this locality is concerned! But, as I 
said before, the work must be persistently con¬ 
tinued. It is one of the earliest of our butter¬ 
flies, and brood after brood appears, up to Sep¬ 
tember. And be it remembered that, although 
it prefers a nice little cabbage to almost any¬ 
thing, it does not consider itself bound to con¬ 
fine its ravages to that plant. Early radishes 
receive its attention, and in default of other 
food it does not refuse a little mignonette, of 
which fact our flower-beds bear ample evidence. 
For those who have not seen it, I will give a 
brief description of the caterpillar. Full-grown, 
it is about one inch and a half in length, of a 
fine dark green. Sometimes a brassy line is 
visible down the back, and on the-sides. Those 
on the sides, however, are generally broken up 
into spots, and none of them are ordinarily vis¬ 
ible without close inspection. The pupa is 
green, with the usual protuberances, and is gen¬ 
erally fastened to a fence, or other convenient 
place, by a silk thread thrown over the back. 
It remains about fourteen days in the pupa 
state, and then emerges to carry on its appoint¬ 
ed task of reproducing its species. 
In the butterfly state, as well as in the cater¬ 
pillar state, it is one of the most assiduous of 
insects. By 7 o’clock in the morning it is well 
on the wing, and it continues its flight from 
flower to flower until late in the afternoon. It is 
useless to indulge in the hope that it may, in its 
butterfly state, be starved to death for want of 
food; for nothing comes amiss to it—it lives 
on Catnip, Boneset, everything in fact. But a 
patch of thistles is its paradise; and here, in 
Jersey, our farmers deal gently with the thistles. 
I have seen a patch of thistles, in flower, so 
thickly covered by P. rapce , that, at a distance, 
the flowers looked to be strongly variegated with 
white. A near approach does not frighten them 
in the least; so if the farmer should choose to 
try his skill in the art of throwing a butterfly 
net, I know of no opportunity that will afford 
him a better chance of capturing his game. 
And it should be remembered, that this is 
after all the most effectual way of going to 
work; for capturing one female butterfly is 
equivalent to the destruction of a great many 
caterpillars. It may be well to look out for the 
first appearance of this butterfly in localities 
not yet visited by it. It is a small white 
butterfly, about an inch and a half, or two 
inches, in the spread of the wing. The male 
has one black spot on the upper surface of 
the secondaries; the female has two. This is 
the most obvious difference. Both sexes have 
the top of the primaries of a brownish-black on 
the upper side, and a corresponding yellow 
spot on the under side. The under part of the 
secondaries is of a greenish-yellow. This de¬ 
scription is sufficient for any ordinary observer; 
but it may not be unnecessary lo say that there 
are varieties in which the whole of the ordin¬ 
arily white portion is of a cream color. 
It is almost useless to look for the egg of this 
insect, as it is difficult to detect, except by a 
great expenditure of time, but in the caterpillar, 
the pupa, and perfect state, it is easy to cap¬ 
ture; and farmers and gardeners should assid¬ 
uously endeavour to extirpate it, whenever and 
wherever found. It should be sought for in 
the caterpillar state when quite young, espe¬ 
cially the second brood, which hatches out 
about the time the early cabbage is forming the 
heart; and it takes but a short time to enable 
the little sapper and miner to bury itself there¬ 
in, and the plant is then unfit for market. 
[In addition to the description of Mr. An¬ 
drews, we would refer the reader to the engrav¬ 
ings of the insect in all its stages, given in the 
Agriculturist in Nov. 1870, page 422.—Ed.] 
The Robin—What to do with Him. 
The robin is here with his mate, and a whole 
nest full of hungry young ones, just ready to 
fly. You heard his notes all through April and 
May, saluting the earliest dawn, bidding fare¬ 
well to the twilight. True, it was not much of 
a song, but it was the best he had, and always 
at your service. You saw his liouse-building 
in the old apple-tree, or in the corner of the 
fence, most industriously carried on from the 
day that he wedded his mate. There was 
nothing very charming in the architecture, not 
much evidence in it of progress toward a high¬ 
er type of bird life, as we compare it with the 
robin nests of two hundred and fifty years ago, 
but it was good, honest work, the best he knew, 
and it sheltered his young. Each one of those 
fledglings in the nest has eaten many times his 
weight of insects in the few brief weeks of his 
growth. If you have watched the operations 
of that household, you have seen the unwearied 
industry of the parent birds in procuring food 
for their young. It is nearly all animal food 
that they have consumed, taken from your 
blossoming fruit-trees and vines, just at a time 
when they were being most injured. They 
have had their fill of worms and bugs, and 
when they get out of the nest they will 
change their diet a little, and help themselves 
to your currants, cherries, raspberries, and 
grapes. All the small fruits will suffer, and 
some of the vegetables. And as the robin is a 
connoiseur, he will take the best of your fruits. 
You cannot blame him for the refinement and 
delicacy of his taste. It will do no good to cul¬ 
tivate foxgrapes for him : he will not touch one 
of them until the best grapes are all gone. If 
you get any fruit in perfect order, you must put 
netting over it, or in some way make it a phys¬ 
ical impossibility for the robin to touch it. We 
have tried the theory of raising fruit enough for 
yourself and the robins too. It is all theory 
and moonshine. There is no one to divide the 
spoil, and the birds, by virtue of their early 
rising, are always masters of the situation. It 
is very nice and humane to spare the birds for 
the sake of the insects they devour, and the 
possibilities of fruit they promise you. But 
wli'at is the use of raising fruit if the birds take 
it all ? So far as the reward of our labor is 
concerned, we are not profited at all by the 
slaughter of the insects. We have been study¬ 
ing Mr. Bergh, and think there is about as 
much cruelty to brutes in killing insects, as in 
killing birds. Only think of the hopes crushed 
in worm households by cockrobin and his 
mate in catering for their young Will there 
not be a sort of poetic justice when he and his 
brood are thrust into a pot-pie, for the benefit of 
the lord of creation ? We want to keep Nature 
in healthful balance. We err when we spare 
all the birds, and pay for our fault in the loss 
of all our fruit. We may safely kill so many 
birds as beasts and birds of prey would take, 
if they were not sheltered by our care. 
--- —»»•— --- 
Mulching. —After the spring rains are over 
and the hot days have come, the newly-planted 
fruit and ornamental trees, as well as flowering 
shrubs and small fruits, feel the effects of heat 
and drouth. Though they may have made a 
good start in the spring, the growth flags in 
these hot June days, and while the well-estab¬ 
lished plants do not mind it so much, those set 
this season are evidently suffering. Only those 
who have tried it know the benefits of mulching. 
After cultivating or otherwise stirring the soil, 
put around the trees or shrubs a good covering 
of straw, bog, or salt hay, or any similar ma¬ 
terial. Not a handful, but a good generous 
covering, to extend as far or farther than the 
roots of the tree or shrub are likely to spread. 
This will prevent evaporation, keep the soil 
mellow, and smother the weeds. Currants and 
gooseberries are, in particular, benefited by this 
treatment, and there is scarcely any plant that 
will not flourish all the better for it. 
Sweet-Potatoes. 
The first week in June is quite early enough 
to set out sweet-potatoe3 in northern localities. 
Where but few are grown, it is much cheaper 
and easier to buy the plants than it is to start 
them. They carry readily by express. In pre¬ 
paring the soil, put upon the level surface a 
strip of fine manure a foot wide, and turn two 
furrows over it to form a ridge. Dress up the 
ridge with the spade, and set the plants about 
15 inches apart. Unless the soil is moist, water 
the holes before setting the plants, which should 
be set well down, so that the stalk of the first 
leaf is covered. Press the soil firmly around 
the plants: much of the success will depend 
upon this. Should the tops wilt and dry up, a 
new shoot will spring up if the plant has been 
set deep enough. The sides of the ridges 
should be kept free of weeds by the proper- 
use of the rake. The vines will soon get 
so large as to smother most of the weeds. 
