The White Butterfly

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20541, 16 February 1935, Page 14

The White Butterfly

A Garden Corner

JT’ROM being a very scarce visitor last season, the white butterfly is now reported from widely scattered parts of the city, making it very evident that the pest has come to stay. Nothing short of a systematic campaign for its destruction will now suffice. Payment should be made for the insects. One penny each would not be too much to suggest. Indeed it would pay to offer a great deal more, for if unchecked, the eggs laid this summer will provide a number next spring sufficient to do great damage to the cabbage crop. It must be remembered that in the life cycle of the butterfly, the females will shortly deposit eggs, which hatch into the rapacious grubs. These are supposed to pass out from this stage to the dormant chrysalid, in about a month, and it is during this period that the damage is done. The eggs are usually laid in yellow clusters on the leaves, and as they grow with the plants, may easily do great destruction unobserved, just as the codlin moth does to the apple. Whose duty is it to start the campaign? T. D. LENNIE.