New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 337 
the young plants largely by feeding on the cotyledons, which in 
severe attacks are often destroyed or are so severely punctured 
that the plants die or fail to make the required growth in time for 
replanting. The principal injuries by these insects occur while the 
plants are appearing above ground and until they are two inches in 
height. As the cabbages increase in size, the work of the flea- 
beetles in the seed-bed gradually diminishes in importance. The 
turnip flea-beetle is the more injurious of the two species. 
Attacking the underground parts of seedlings are two species 
of maggots, which are the cabbage-maggot (Pegomya brassicae 
Bouché) and the seed-corn maggot (Pegomya fusciceps Zett.). The 
adults make their appearance in the seed-beds about the same time 
as the flea-beetles, but injuries by the maggots are usually later and 
the effects of the attacks are not fully apparent until after the prin- 
cipal work of the flea-beetles has ended. Of the two kinds of pests 
attacking seed-beds, the root-maggots are commonly regarded as 
the more destructive and the more difficult to combat. 
FARM PRACTICES TO PROTECT SEED-BEDS FROM MAGGOTS. 
Farmers generally are not successful in protecting their seed-beds 
from injuries by maggots. One of the methods most commonly 
recommended is to wet the ground about injured plants with diluted 
kerosene-emulsion or crude carbolic acid emulsion. This treatment, 
while destructive to young maggots, is, as commonly employed, not 
satisfactory. The chief reason for the failures is that the applica- 
tions are made too late or are not frequent enough. Because of the 
doubtful results attending the use of emulsions, many growers have 
abandoned the employment of insecticides and now endeavor to 
raise the desired number of plants by making larger seed-beds, and 
by sowing beds at various intervals of time. These have, in the 
main, proven somewhat uncertain and costly practices. 
A method of protecting seedling beds, which is much more 
efficient, is that of growing plants under cheesecloth screening. The 
use of screening has been tried by a few farmers, but for obvious 
reasons with somewhat varied success. As a rule the screened 
plats were not as free of maggots as they apparently should be 
and the plants, grown under cloth, did not usually recuperate as 
quickly or in as large numbers after replanting in the field as the 
seedlings grown in the open. Observations on various screened 
beds indicated that these failures could largely be obviated by mak- 
ing the frames entirely fly-proof, so that the insects could not get 
