HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 177 



lilies, carnations, chrysanthemums, geraniums, pansies, heliotrope, 

 primula, verbenas, fuchsias, pyrethrum, sniilax, violets and others. 

 The proper description of the cultivation of these would require 

 much space to each one, but every one of these different plants are 

 under favorable conditions preyed upon by a particular insect. To 

 describe each one of these and their habits, would be entirely be- 

 yond the limits of this paper. We will, however, refer to a few of 

 them: A plant in its normal condition, that is, a perfectly healthy 

 plant in its habits and in the field of its proper environment, is sel- 

 dom attacked by insects, until it has reached a certain condition. 

 But this is not universally true of all vegetation, but we cannot go 

 into an explanation of the why and the why not. But it is quite ap- 

 parent to all close observers of nature. 



The rose is mostly subject to the attacks of the green aphis, red 

 spider, and under certain conditions, the mealy bug. All three of 

 these insects likewise attack the lily. Of course there are many 

 insects that feed upon the rose and all of the plants that we have 

 mentioned, when grown out of doors. But our remarks concern, 

 now, only greenhouse plants, and the insects that injure them. 



The green fly (Ajrfiis), is easily removed by timely use of 

 tobacco smoke. The red spider {Tetranychus felarious), scientifi- 

 cally speaking, is not a spider at all, but a mite — a spinning mite. 

 You all know a spider is constricted just back of the thorax, like 

 unto a wasp, but our little fellow is universally called the red 

 spider, and we adopt that cognomen. He, or it, is very difficult to 

 remove from our plants, indeed, not infrequently the plants are 

 almost ruined before we are aware of his presence. His fa- 

 vorite environment is in warm, dry air. We do not like to believe 

 in spontaneous life, and yet, it does seem as if we are almost daily 

 confronted with the fact, for we send our plants out free from the 

 red spider, and in a few dayn we are buried under complaints from 

 our lady friends, that their plants are sickly and leaves are yellow 

 and brown, and falling off. We know at once the cause, the hot 

 air in a dry, close room, the very nest of the cause. It is useless 

 to argue with our lady friends, for they know better — their rooms 

 are not hot nor dry, and so we try to appease them with a sweet 

 rose-bud, or a bunch of violets. 



The best remedy, and in fact the only one, is by copiously 

 syringing the plants with water, as well as the benches and walks 

 in the greenhouse; also, the hot water pipes. If this is done and 

 persisted in — you need not fear but the spider will be drowned out. 

 But to describe our little Turk, it is found on a great variety of 

 plants, as it is as varied in its colorings as the plants upon which 

 it feeds, some are greenish marked with brown spots upon their 

 sides, others of redish and somewhat lustrous. In fact, to view 

 them with a microscope, in variety of colors they resemble a herd 

 of cattle or spotted swine. The legs of these mites are wonderfully 

 adapted to the drawing out the flimsy thread with which they spin 

 their fine web-net work under which they live, on the underside 

 of the leaves, from which they suck the sap, and to stretch their 

 webs, their feet are used, and made to perform very rapid motions. 



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