RED SPIDER. 225 



Care should, however, be taken to raise the sokition once to 

 boiling point in mixing, and to test effects on leafage lest it 

 should be used too strong. 



The following recipe for dressing fruit walls answers well as 

 a preventive of attack : — Having obtained some soot-water, 

 tolerably clarified and as strong a solution as can be procured, 

 this is worked up with clay till the whole is of the consistency 

 of thick paint, and can be applied by a common painter's 

 brush ; to this, flour of sulphur and soft-soap are added in 

 such proportion as may be j^referred : one pound of sulphur 

 and two ounces of soft-soap to the gallon has been found to 

 answer. Every part of the wall is then painted with the 

 mixture, care being taken to get it well behind the shoots, and 

 also to paint a broad thick band along the bottom of the wall. 

 This application, made once in the season as a regular yearly 

 treatment, has been found to prevent Ked Spider attack quite 

 satisfactorily. — (' Gardeners' Chronicle,' 1845.) This plan acts 

 by poisoning and burying the " Eed Spider" in the walls, 

 and also by putting a band in the way of such as have been 

 wintering under stones and rubbish, such as they will not care 

 to cross to get at the tree ; other mixtures, as preferred by 

 the cultivator, might be similarly used. 



Clean and properly pointed walls are a preventive of attack, 

 as is also ground so cultivated and attended to that there shall 

 be no neglected surface the mites can lurk in, or hiding-places 

 under stones, clods of earth, or rubbish beneath which they 

 can hybernate. An autumn dressing of gas-lime would be a 

 desirable ap[)lication to neglected borders where there are in- 

 fested wall fruit trees. 



In specimens of infestation of Eed Spider '?sp., sent me in 

 tbe autumn of 1880, from Lime trees near Walthamstow, the 

 extent to which these mites spun their webs over the trunks 

 and branches of the infested trees, so as to give a kind of 

 glaze or silky a[)pearance to the surface, was very noticeable. 

 The eggs were to be found attached to the webs ; and it has 

 been found that brushing the tree-stems hard and thoroughly, 

 so as to remove the webs, is serviceable in some degree in 

 clearing attack, and would be still more so if some soft-soap 

 was brushed in at the same time. 



Amongst natural Jielpers against "Eed Spider" infestation, 

 it m <y be worth while to mention the "Minute Black Lady- 

 bird," the Scymnus minimus of Eossi, of which the maggots 

 feed greedily on this pest These little beetles, which I have 

 reared from the larval condition, are very like the common 

 CoccinelUe, or Ladybird Beetles, in shape, but much smaller, 

 being less than one-twelfth of an inch in length. The colour 

 shining black ; wing-cases pubescent and finely punctured ; 



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