n, the fly
is most destructive. I am not certain that the alkaline nature of these
affords the protection, or whether a mere covering by common dust might
not answer equally well. Should the covering be washed off by rain,
apply it anew immediately after the rain has ceased, and so continue to
keep the young plants covered until the third or fourth leaves are
developed when they will have become too tough to serve as food for this
insect enemy.

A new enemy much dreaded by all cabbage raisers will begin to make his
appearance about the time the flea disappears, known as the cut-worm.
This worm is of a dusky brown color, with a dark colored head, and
varies in size up to about two inches in length. He burrows in the
ground just below the surface, is slow of motion, and does his
mischievous work at night, gnawing off the young plants close at the
surface of the ground. This enemy is hard to battle with. If the patch
be small, these worms can be scratched out of their hiding places by
pulling the earth carefully away the following morning for a few inches
around the stump of the plant destroyed, when the rascals will usually
be found half coiled together. Dropping a little wood ashes around the
plants close to the stumps is one of the best of remedies; its alkaline
properties burning his nose I presume. A tunnel of paper put around the
stump but not touching it, and sunk just below the surface, is
recommended as efficacious; and from the habits of the worm I should
think it would prove so. Perpendicular holes four inches deep and an
inch in diameter is said to catch and hold them as effectively as do the
pit falls of Africa the wild animals. Late planted cabbage will suffer
little or none from this pest, as he disappears about the middle of
June. Some seasons they are remarkably numerous, making it necessary to
replant portions of the cabbage patch several times over. I have heard
of as many as twenty being dug at different times the same season out of
one cabbage hill. The farmer who tilled that patch earned his dollars.
When the cabbage has a stump the size of a pipe stem it is beyond the
destructive ravages of the cut-worm, and should it escape stump foot has
usually quite a period of growth free from the attacks of enemies.
Should the season prove unpropitious and the plant be checked in its
growth, it will be apt to become "lousy," as the farmers term it,
referring to its condition when attacked by a small green insec