Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


measures used will repay their cost many times over. This in-
sect attacks cabbage, cauliflower, tobacco and many other plants
(see Fla. Agr. Exp. Sta. Bul. 26, p. 105) but is most serious
on onions.
 Eggs are placed singly in the leaf tissue just below its sur-
face. They hatch in about 4 days. The larval stages last from
7 to 9 days, the insect molting twice. Then follows the nymphal
stage during which the insect is dormant and takes no food.
The wings show for the first time during this stage which lasts
4 days.
 The insects are easily killed by whale-oil soap, 1 pound to
4 gallons of water, or by any of the tobacco extracts recom-
mended for the flower thrips. A half-pint of black leaf 40 and
3 or 4 pounds of soap to 50 gallons of water is a sufficient and
economical spray. It may be necessary to spray twice in order
to get the nymphs that are hidden in the bases of the leaves or
elsewhere at the time of the first spraying.
 ONION ROOT-MAGGOT (Phorbia fusciceps)
 The onion root-maggot (see fig. 75) begins its depreda-
tions early in the season on the young and tender onion plants.
" The eggs are deposited loosely above the surface of the ground
on the stem and basal leaves. Usually 5 or 6 eggs are deposited
on the plant. In about a week these eggs hatch and the young
maggots burrow downward within the leaf sheath, leaving dis-
colored streaks to mark their passage; penetrating the soft cylin-
drical root, they greedily devour the interior, leaving the outer
skin. Having consumed one plant, it is abandoned and another
is attacked. About 2 weeks is required for the maggot to com-
plete its growth, when it usually leaves the onion and, retiring
into the neighboring soil, forms the pupa, from which it
emerges as an adult fly in about a fortnight. The winter is
probably passed in the pupa state in the ground." (Fla. Agr.
Exp. Sta. Bul. 34, p. 306.) Pegomya cepetorum, the Northern
imported onion maggot, is not known to occur in Florida.
 Control.-The maggots in the bulbs are out of reach of any
 insecticides and all efforts must be aimed at preventing them
 from reaching the plants. As many of the eggs are deposited
 on the ground near the plants, or are loosely attached, frequent
 cultivation will break many of them and remove others to such
 a distance that the newly-hatched maggots will fail to reach
 the plants.
 Onions should not be planted on land that has had a crop