Celery Fly
(Tephritis onopordinis). Celery Leaf-miner. Of late years, the larvae of this destructive insect have proved a great drawback to the culture of Celery. They sometimes appear when the plants are quite small, and eat out all the inner portion of the leaves as fast as they are produced, thereby preventing the plants from growing, and causing them to turn brown and often eventually to die away. Syringing the plants with tobacco water, followed by clean water, is said to destroy them; but the best and only certain remedy is to carefully look over every plant so soon as the small larvae are detected, pinch off the affected part of the leaves, and burn them, or destroy the insects between the finger and thumb. If this method be followed from the first, at the same time keeping the plants growing as much as possible by applying plenty of water, the insects will not be able to cause so much injury. They attack the Celery for three or four months in some seasons, and their destruction should be taken in hand immediately they are detected.