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For caterpillars that develop into moths
"Erect
a post in the centre of the garden, on which nail a platform of planks some thirty inches square, which cover with sand; on
this build nightly a fire of fat lightwood for some weeks, from the time that moths, millers, and butterflies begin to infest
the garden. Large numbers will fly into the fire and be consumed.
"Hang
up common porter bottles, though wide-mouthed bottles are preferable, during the same season, with a few spoonfuls of sweetened
water or molasses and vinegar in them to be renewed every second evening, and hundreds of moths that would have been the parents
of a new race of destroyers will be caught. This is the most promising mode of waging war also upon the melon-worm as
well as the corn and boll-worm, and many other insects. For filling the bottles, a better preparation still is a pint
of water to half a pint of molasses, the water having as much cobalt dissolved in it as it will take up before mixing with
the molasses. Put a wineglassful to each bottle and empty once or twice a week.
"After the vegetables have become established, keep the chickens and other fowl
in the garden to pick off cabbage worms. Allow wild birds and toads to live in and near the garden.
"After the plants have been attacked a number of preparations may be used:
"Try the camphor preparation of R. B. in the
Southern Cultivator. Put into a barrel of water a quarter of a pound of camphor, in pieces the size of a hickory nut,
fill with water and let it stand a day, and with this water our plants, and fill the barrel for the next watering. The
camphor is slowly absorbed, and will last a long time. If the camphor water is too weak, add to a barrel of water a
cupful or more of strong lye, and more will dissolve. Add also a pound of cheap cape aloes to a gallon of lye (or water
in which a pound of saleratus or potash has been dissolved); add a pint of this to a barrel of water, and use as the camphor
water. Camphor and aloes (especially the former) are offensive to most insects.
"Try
also sprinkling the plants with ashes, air-slaked lime, charcoal dust impregnated with the odor of oil turpentine, soot, sulphur,
or better still, Scotch snuff sifted on the plants, by placing it in a tin cup, with the mouth covered with gauze, and shaking
it when inverted over the plants. Try also to drive away the insects.
"Watering
them and the plants with an infusion of tobacco, or China berries, soapsuds, solutions of guano, or whale oil soap, when the
latter can be obtained. Fumigating with sulphur and tobacco is very efficient. But tobacco water is the great
remedy."
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