Another remedy is pyrethrum. Use that which is fresh; either blowing it on in a dry state with a bellows, wherever the worm appears, or using it diluted, at the rate of a tablespoonful to two gallons of water; applying as with the kerosene emulsion. Mr. A. S. Fuller, who is good authority on garden matters, succeeds by applying tar-water. Place a couple of quarts of coal tar in a barrel and fill with water; let it stand forty-eight hours, then dip off, and apply with a watering-pot, or syringe.
Chickens allowed to run freely among the growing plants, the hen being confined in a movable coop, if once attracted to them will fatten on them. This remedy might answer very well for small plots. Large areas in cabbage, in proportion to their size are, as a rule, far less injured by insect enemies than small patches. The worm is of late years less troublesome in the North than formerly.
CLUB OR STUMP FOOT AND MAGGOT.
The great dread of every cabbage grower is a disease of the branching roots, producing a bunchy, gland-like enlargement, known in different localities under the name of club foot, stump foot, underground head, finger and thumb. The result is a check in the ascent of the sap, which causes a defective vitality. There are two theories as to the origin of club foot; one that it is a disease caused by poor soil, bad cultivation, and unsuitable manures; the other that the injury is done by an insect enemy, Curculio contractus. It is held by some that the maggots at the root are the progeny of the cabbage flea. This I doubt. This insect, "piercing the skin of the root, deposits its eggs in the holes, lives during a time on the sap of the plant, and then escapes and buries itself for a time in the soil."
If the wart, or gland-like excrescence, is seen while transplanting, throw all such plants away, unless your supply is short; in such case, carefully trim off all the diseased portions with a sharp knife. If the disease is in the growing crop, it will be made evident by the drooping of the leaves under the mid-day sun, leaves of diseased plants drooping more than those of healthy ones, while they will usually have a bluer cast. Should this disease show itself, set the cultivator going immediately, and follow with the hoe, drawing up fresh earth around the plants, which will encourage them to form new fibrous roots; should they do this freely, the plants will be saved, as the attacks of the insect are usually confined to the coarse, branching roots. Should the disease prevail as late as when the plants have reached half their growth, the chances are decidedly against raising a paying crop.
When the land planted is too wet, or the manure in the hill is too strong, this dreaded disease is liable to be found on any soil; but it is most likely to manifest itself on soils that have been previously cropped with cabbage, turnip, or some other member of the Brassica family.
Farmers find that, as a rule, it is not safe to follow cabbage, ruta baga, or any of the Brassica family, with cabbage, unless three or four years have intervened between the crops; and I have known an instance in growing the Marblehead Mammoth, where, though five years had intervened, that portion of the piece occupied by the previous crop could be distinctly marked off by the presence of club-foot.
Singular as it may appear, old gardens are an exception to this rule. While it is next to impossible to raise, in old gardens, a fair turnip, free from club-foot, cabbages may be raised year after year on the same soil with impunity, or, at least, with but trifling injury from that disease. This seems to prove, contrary to English authority, that club-foot in the turnip tribe is the effect of a different cause from the same disease in the cabbage family.
There is another position taken by Stephens in his "Book of the Farm," which facts seem to disprove. He puts forth the theory that "all such diseases arise from poverty of the soil, either from want of manure when the soil is naturally poor, or rendered effete by over-cropping." There is a farm on a neck of land belonging to this town (Marblehead, Mass.), which has peculiar advantages for collecting sea kelp and sea moss, and these manures are there used most liberally, particularly in the cultivation of cabbage, from eight to twelve cords of rotten kelp, which is stronger than barn manure, and more suitable food for cabbage, being used to the acre. A few years ago, on a change of tenants, the new incumbent heavily manured a piece for cabbage, and planted it; but, as the season advanced, stump-foot developed in every cabbage on one side of the piece, while all the remainder were healthy. Upon inquiry, he learned that, by mistake, he had overlapped the cabbage plot of last season just so far as the stump-foot extended. In this instance, it could not have been that the cabbage suffered for want of food; for, not only was the piece heavily manured that year and the year previous, but it had been liberally manured through a series of years, and, to a large extent, with the manure which, of all others, the cabbage tribe delight in, rotten kelp and sea mosses. I have known other instances where soil, naturally quite strong, and kept heavily manured for a series of years, has shown stump-foot when cabbage were planted, with intervals of two and three years between. My theory is, that the mere presence of the cabbage causes stump-foot on succeeding crops grown on the same soil. This is proved by the fact that where a piece of land in grass, close adjoining a piece of growing cabbage, had been used for stripping them for market, when this was broken up the next season and planted to cabbage, stump-foot appeared only on that portion where the waste leaves fell the year previous. I have another instance to the same point, told me by an observing farmer, that, on a piece of sod land, on which he ran his cultivator the year previous, when turning his horse every time he had cultivated a row, he had stump-footed cabbage the next season just as far as that cultivator went, dragging, of course, a few leaves and a little earth from the cabbage piece with it. Still, though the mere presence of cabbage causes stump-foot, it is a fact, that, under certain conditions, cabbage can be grown on the same piece of land year after year successfully, with but very little trouble from stump-foot. In this town (Marblehead), though, as I have stated, we cannot, on our farms, follow cabbage with cabbage, even with the highest of manuring and cultivation, yet in the gardens of the town, on the same kind of soil (and our soil is green stone and syenite, not naturally containing lime), there are instances where cabbage has been successfully followed by cabbage, on the same spot, for a quarter of a century and more. In the garden of an aged citizen of this town, cabbages have been raised on the same spot of land for over half a century.