330 Report OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENTOMOLOGY OF THE 
INTRODUCTION. 
In many parts of the State where late cabbages are extensively 
grown, farmers frequently experience much difficulty in raising 
enough seedlings, of required size, to plant the desired acreage. 
The principal handicaps in the growing of seedling plants are flea- 
beetles and root-maggots, which in years of abnormal numbers stunt 
and destroy a large percentage of the young cabbages in the seed- 
beds. It not infrequently happens that cabbage growers, after hav- 
ing sown several beds and planted several times the amount of seed 
ordinarily required, are finally compelled to buy plants to supply the 
deficiencies. On this account in various cabbage-growing sections 
large quantities of sets have been imported from New Jersey and 
Maryland for the past several years. Farmers generally are op- 
posed to this practice and prefer home-grown plants, if they can be 
had, for reasons of economy and safety. It is claimed that seed- 
lings can be grown for about ten to fifteen cents a thousand, while 
the usual cost of imported plants will average from seventy-five 
cents to one dollar and a quarter per thousand. It is also generally 
believed that home-grown plants are more hardy and usually re- 
cuperate quicker upon transplanting in the field; and that they do 
not require to be reset in such large numbers as the imported seed- 
lings. In addition, the importing of plants or the transplanting of 
them from one farm to another is attended with certain risks, espe- 
cially in the introduction of club-root into clean fields. 
Various cabbage seed-bed problems, largely concerned with de- 
structive insects, have been under consideration by the Station for 
several years. One of these is to determine means of protecting 
seed-beds from cabbage-maggots. Of the various measures that 
have been employed in the experiments with this pest, screening 
of the plants has afforded the most efficient protection to seed-beds. 
Because of its efficiency for this purpose, the attention of growers 
is called to the value of screening of beds as one means of pro- 
tecting plants from injuries by root-maggots. 
GENERAL DISCUSSION. 
IMPORTANT SEED-BED INSECTS AND NATURE OF INJURIES. 
Two species of flea-beetles are destructive to cabbage seedlings, 
which are the turnip flea-beetle (Phyllotreta vittata Fab.) and the 
smartweed flea-beetle (Systena hudsonia Forst.), These injure 
