THE 



Gardeners' Monthly 



AND 



HORTICULTURIST. 



DEVOTED TO HORTICULTURE. ARBORICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS. 



Edited by THOMAS MEEHAN, 



Volume XXVII. 



NOVEMBER, 1885. 



Number 323. 



Flower Gardm and Pleasure Ground. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Gardening would be more nearly an echo of 

 paradise than it is now, only for the annoyances 

 caused by insect foes. The red spider is a terrible 

 pest, and the past season it has been more than 

 usually destructive. The evergreen box is a great 

 favorite with this little vixen, and only for this the 

 Box in its many varied forms would be one of the 

 most popular ornaments of our gardens. Then 

 many coniferous trees, more particularly the White 

 and Black Spruces and the Siberian Fir, seem 

 particularly attractive to them, and of late years 

 they seem to have discovered that a dose of Arbor 

 Vitae is not bad to take. They are so very small 

 that they can scarcely be seen without a pocket 

 lens, but their existence may always be known by 

 a brownish tint to the tree in summer time ; and 

 on a dewy morning by the dense cobweb which 

 is then made apparent like a silk net-work over 

 the whole tree or bush. From this web-weaving 

 power, and we suppose from some other anato- 

 mical characters they are classed with the Arach- 

 nideffi, or Spider family ; but while spiders gen- 

 erally are carnivorous, these little wretches are 

 suctorial, and live on the juices of the tree. 

 Spiders usually make webs to catch insects — ^just 

 what these creatures make webs for, that eat no flesh 

 nor drink blood, nor have anything to do but suck 

 the pleasant juices of our petted plants is not clear. 



But we are getting too much out into wild nature for 

 "practical hints," where people want to know 

 what to do, than to get merely moral lessons. 

 Fortunately red spider cannot catch on well, and a 

 powerful syringe or garden engine will soon clear 

 a bush or small tree of them. They thrive during 

 hot weather simply because there are no rains to 

 knock them off. As they suck only, poisons will 

 not reach them. But when we have to deal with 

 insects that eat, such as the Elm-leaf Beetle, 

 Potato Beetle, or caterpillars such as the Measuring 

 or Canker Worm, a syringing or engineing with 

 water in which Paris Green has been dissolved, 

 will do the destructive work effectually. But very 

 often it is much easier to gather by hand than to 

 worry over poisons or mixtures. This is particularly 

 the case with the drop-worm, basket worm, or, if we 

 prefer the genuine name given by the entomolo- 

 gical men of science, Thryriodopteryx ephemerje- 

 formis. A boy will clear one's whole place of 

 them in a day, and a second picking will gather 

 in the few missed on the first venture. These 

 curious creatures that commence to build a house 

 over themselves when they are born, and die in 

 the house they build — the house that is at once 

 their cradle and their grave — are very common on 

 Arbor Vitffis and other coniferous trees. They 

 kill the trees if not taken off early, for no tree 

 suffers by the loss of its leaves like an evergreen. 

 Yet it is no uncommon thing to find gardeners with 



