The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 669 pages of information about The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots.

The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 669 pages of information about The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots.

Where this pest proves very troublesome it may be desirable to transfer Onion growing to new ground until the infested land has been purged of the pupae.  Instead of throwing useless Onion material on the waste heap to afford the fly a home for its eggs, every scrap should be burned.  As the preparation of an Onion bed approaches completion, powdered lime well mixed with soot, in the proportion of two bushels of the former to one of the latter, may be sown evenly over the surface and raked in.  Sand impregnated with paraffin sown along the drills has answered as a preventive.  Vaporite is a destroyer of the pupae; this preparation has proved deadly to ground vermin generally.  Earthing up the Onions was proved by Miss Ormerod’s experiment to be effective.  The objection to this procedure is the probability of enlarged necks which are not wanted.  An emulsion, composed of one pint of paraffin, one pound of soft soap mixed with ten gallons of water, thoroughly churned by a hand syringe and sprayed over the young plants in a fine mist, is a valuable preventive.  The dose may be repeated after rainfall, if necessary.  The quantities named suffice for a small plot only.  Soapsuds are destructive to the maggots, disagreeable to the fly, and beneficial to the young plants.  The suds should be sprayed over the bed from a watering can on the first appearance of a yellow colour in the grass.  As a final suggestion reference may be made to a singular fact which we do not profess to explain, viz. that transplanted Onions are very seldom touched by grub.  The modern practice of raising seedlings under glass in January or February, and planting out in open beds in April, offers the advantage of a long season of growth combined with comparative immunity from attack by the Onion Fly.

==Turnip Fly,== or ==Flea,== is well known to the gardener, and is the most troublesome of all the aerial pests of the farm, and one with which it is most difficult to cope, not only because of its general diffusion and numbers, but because it produces a succession of broods throughout the summer, and is therefore always in force, ready to devour the crop immediately it appears.  The so-called ‘Fly’ is a small beetle named =Haltica (Phyllotreta) nemorum=, strongly made, and decidedly voracious.  The larvae are not to be feared, except that, of course, they in due time become beetles.  In the perfect state this winged jumping insect makes havoc of the rising plant of Turnips, but the crop is only in danger while in the seed-leaf stage.  It is in the spring and early summer chiefly that the ravages of these insects occasion perplexity, for they awaken from their winter torpor active and hungry, and have a ready appetite for almost any cruciferous plant.  Hence we see the leaves of Radishes pierced by them, and all such weeds as Charlock, Cuckoo Flower, Hedge Garlic, and Water Cress serve them for food until the Turnip crops are on the move, when they will travel miles, even against the wind, to wreck the farmer’s hopes.  The Cabbage Flea (=Haltica oleracea=) in some districts is equally troublesome, if not more so.  Whole Cabbages may be destroyed by this pest, and even Hops are often ruined by it.

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The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.