150 Principles of Plant Culture. 
279. Inclosing the Plants is practicable in a few cases, 
as with the striped cucumber beetle.* The hills, in which 
cucumbers, melons, 
4, squashes etc., are plant- 
ed, may be covered with 
Fic. 66. Screen-covered frame for protecting “ 
hills of the melon and cucumber. a frame having fine- 
meshed wire- or cotton netting (Fig. 66) tacked over the 
top, which prevents the beetles from injuring the plants. 
280. Trapping the Insects is practicable in a few 
cases, as with cutworms, which often conceal themselves 
during the day beneath objects on the ground. They will 
frequently be found in numbers beneath handfuls of green 
clover, or other herbage placed on the ground near the 
plants which it is desired to protect. By poisoning the 
herbage with some form of arsenic (284), some of the cut- 
worms may be killed, but many are likely to escape unless 
destroyed by other means, as hand picking (282). 
281. Repelling Insects by means of offensive odors is 
partially effectual in some cases, as with the squash-vine 
borer. Corncobs or other objects, dipped in coal tar and 
placed among the plants, repel many of the moths that 
produce the borers. | 
282. Hand Picking, i. e., removing the insects from 
the plants by hand, is the most satisfactory method for 
destroying certain insects, as the tobacco- or tomato- worm,t 
and other large caterpilliars, and the rose-beetle.2 A vessel 
of water with a little kerosene on the surface, in which to 
throw the insects as they are gathered, is a convenient way 
of destroying them. In some cases, the insects can be 
* Diabrotica vittata. + Melittia ceto. 
{ Phlegethontius celeus. ? Macrodactylus subspinosus. 
