May, 1910. 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
15 
INSECT FORKS. 
— The Cabbage Moth. — 
The caterpillar of this moth is a great 
garden pest. It chiefly attacks Cabbages 
and other greens. The moth appears 
‘during the whole summer. 
laid on the leaves of plants and hatch in 
The method of feeding 
The eggs are 
six or seven days. 
of the caterpillars varies according to the 
plant attacked. When tho laave are on 
a Cabbage they eat their way into the 
heart of the plant and foul it with moist 
green excreta, which gives a moist dis- 
gusting appearance. When 
Turnips and other plants it devours the 
leaves down to the midribs. When 
mature the caterpillar enters the ground 
attacking 
to pupate. 
moths during the following 
The pupee give rise to mature 
BUI ere 
Hand-picking is the best remedy and 
Should be practised when the caterpillars 
first make their appearance. - 
— The Cabbage Root Fly. — 
This little fly is a serious pest on all - 
plants of the Brassica tribe. Attacked 
plants are checked in growth, their caves 
The 
females lay their eggs on the ground close 
discolour and the plant falls away. 
to the plant, and these are hatched in a 
‘week or so, according to the weather con- 
ditions. The maggots make their way to 
the roots, which they feed upon. When 
full grown the maggots pass into the soil 
alittle way from the attacked plant, and 
become pups. The first flies of the year 
appear for their egg-laying about the end 
of April, and there are probably three 
generationsin the year. A useful remedy 
isa cupful of paraffin added to a pailfal of 
sand, and the sand sprinkled once a week 
round the stems of the Cabbages; ~ 
— The Celery Fly. — 
The larvae of this fly cause injury to 
celery, tunnelling the tissues of the leaves 
and feeding upon the soft juicy substance. 
This causes the leaf to blister, and after a 
short period it shrivels up and is utterly 
useless to the plant. Sometimes: the 
plant is killed, or the Celery is small, 
green and bitter in flavour. The fly lays 
sits eggs singly upon the upper surface of 
_ failure in 
the leaves. In about 14 days the larvee 
change into pups, either remaining on the 
leaf or falling to the ground. Finely 
powdered soot’ or lime dusted over the 
plants while the dew is on them prevents 
the flies from laying their eggs upon the 
leaves. When the Celery crop has been 
taken from the trenches the earth should 
be levelled and well dug, and the upper 
surface well buried deeply to prevent the 
flies from coming up. 
Double Digging. 
If trenching or double digging were 
necessary in bygone days whon cropping 
was not nearly so rapid asit is now when 
we are not content with crops following 
each other almost before the land is 
cleared but many go in for double crop- 
ping, and we find all sorts of Winter 
Greens, Broccoli, Savoys etc., getting 
established between the rows of potatoes 
so that the land is never at rest. In 
reyard to trenching the diflicuity with 
t 
many is to get any ground vacan 
during the winter season when it can be 
_ done but there is not the slightest doubt 
that deep cultivation is the only way to 
effectually guard against drought, and 
with. tho experience of recent summers 
fresh in our minds it would be folly not 
to guard as far.as possible against. similar 
the Artifectoral 
watering, mulching ete. are only aids to 
ward off the effects of drought. 
future. 
The real 
cure is a deep,- thoroughly pulverised and 
liberally enriched root-run where the 
crops can defy the effects of drought. In 
gardens of limited area such as amateurs 
generally cultivate the best plan is to set 
it out in plots, and crop itso that the 
portion should become vacant in the 
winter season and receive its turn of 
trenching whereby it will really be.made 
like new soil, for with all our skill and 
chemistry we do not improve on nature 
so rapidly as to be able to be put into 
the soil the exact elements that each crop 
requires, The object of the old practice 
of allowing land to lie fallow one year 
“and cropping it the next was that nature 
might restore to exhausted land, through 
_the agency of frost and rain, the very 
things in which it was deficient, There 
“is little chance of going back to this 
primitive mode of letting land, at least 
in gardens, restore itself simply by lying 
idle; We, however, must take care that 
we do not verify the old motto of the 
more haste the less speed becoming appli- 
‘cable to garden lands, for it is no use 
hurrying a large space of any given crop 
into the soil if by better culture we 
could have grown an equal amount of 
produce on a smaller area, and I am fully 
convinced that deep cultivation enables 
this to be done, and as regards manure 
’ there is little doubt but double digging 
saves manure, for it brings to the surface 
and within reach of the roots those nut- 
ritious elements that have been washed 
deeply down by heavy rains until they 
were practically useless ; brought tp 
again to the influence of the sun and air 
they become available for plant food. 
In trenching I utiliso all the roughest of 
the garden refuse by burying in the 
bottom of the trenches all the old stems 
of Broccoli or any of the Cabbage family. 
For old Strawberry beds that have 
became weedy there is uo cure like bury- 
ing the whole mass two spits deep, if 
possible, in the autumn or early part of 
the winter, which is the best for the work 
' for then the newly turned-up soil gets the 
whole of the winter to become mellowed 
before the seed time comes round again 5 
but still any time during winter does very 
well, for trenching is good work during 
cold weather, and when the depth of 
good soil is not sufficient to allow the 
bottom spit being turned right on the top 
of the first, it should be well broken up 
with forks, so as to increase the depth of 
friable soil, the best antidote for crops 
suffering rrom drought yet invented, 
E. BLACKEBY, 
BOOLT & SHOK MANUFACTURER, 
226 Rundle Street, Adelaide. 
Cut Soles a Speciality. 
OMMERCIAL AND ORNAMEN- 
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notice, and at cheapest rates, at the 
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Serymgour’s Buildings, 20 W 
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