Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them | Page 8

rally and grow when they appear to be
dead; the leaves may all die, and dry up like hay, but if the stump
stands erect and the unfolded leaf at the top of the stump is alive, the
plant will usually survive. When the plants are quite large, they may be
used successfully by cutting or breaking off the larger leaves. Some
advocate wilting the plants before transplanting, piling them in the
cellar a few days before setting them out, to toughen them and get a
new setting of fine roots; others challenge their vigor by making it a
rule to do all transplanting under the heat of mid-day. I think there is
not much of reason in this latter course. The young plants can be set out
almost as fast as a man can walk, by holding the roots close to one side
of the hole made by the dibble, and at the same moment pressing earth
against them with the other hand.

PROTECTING THE PLANTS FROM THEIR ENEMIES.
As soon as they have broken through the soil, an enemy awaits them in
the small black insect commonly known as the cabbage or turnip fly,
beetle, or flea. This insect, though so small as to appear to the eye as a
black dot, is very voracious and surprisingly active. He apparently
feeds on the juice of the young plant, perforating it with small holes the
size of a pin point. He is so active when disturbed that his motions
cannot be followed by the eye, and his sense of danger is so keen that
only by cautiously approaching the plant can he be seen at all. The
delay of a single day in protecting the young plants from his ravages
will sometimes be the destruction of nearly the entire piece. Wood
ashes and air-slaked lime, sprinkled upon the plants while the leaves
are moist from either rain or dew, afford almost complete protection.
The lime or ashes should be applied as soon as the plant can be seen,
for then, when they are in their tenderest condition, 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 insect known
as aphidæ,